


NC2.5: Until We Rise Again

by Humbae



Series: NC [4]
Category: Ylvis
Genre: Angst, Gen, brofeels, h/c, nc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-04-10 00:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 50,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4369469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humbae/pseuds/Humbae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Direct continuation of NC2. The missing time between the last chapter and the epilogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

”Birger!” Ingvild Rydmann shouted, calling for her husband who was performing his morning ablutions in the bathroom.

”What?” he yelled in return. He hated it when his wife disturbed him from behind locked doors.

”The dog's gone crazy again. Go sort it out!”

”I'm busy!”

”It's gonna be another dead rabbit and you promised you'll take care of them!”

”After I'm done here!” Birger felt his cheeks go red. The bathroom was supposed to be a sanctuary, a sacred place of privacy and relief. He shouldn't have to listen to his wife shout about dead animals while ensconced within its sturdy walls.

Five minutes later, a grumpy man in his early forties emerged from the small room, buckling his belt and glaring at the tall woman cooking breakfast in their tiny kitchen. Their log cottage had originally been built as a summer residence for one person, but the Rydmann family lived under the thick turf roof year-round with two daughters and a small dog. Space was sparse but the proximity to the vast expanse of untamed wilderness made up for it.

“She's still barking,” was Ingvild's greeting to her husband.

“Good morning to you too,” Birger grumbled under his breath, nearly certain that his wife couldn't hear it over the bubbling of the porridge she was stirring. He proceeded to pull on his rubber boots and wrap a thin summer jacket around his shoulders. The weather forecast threatened that the first frosts of the season would hit them any day now. The mornings were noticeably chilly and would only get colder as the days grew shorter.

Birger exited the house and headed towards the barking somewhere in their back garden. The sun hung low among grey clouds, colouring their undersides pale orange. Birger thought he could smell rain in the crisp air. His small white dog, Emma, was circling a spot in their juniper hedge and barking incessantly.

“What is it, girl?” Birger asked with the tenderness he reserved only for his pet. “I'm coming,” he added when the intensity of the barking did not diminish.

Birger made his way through soggy moss and tall hay towards the hedge, already regretting that he hadn't thought to bring a shovel for the small animal carcass he expected to find. He bent down to give Emma a quick pat, hoping to calm her, and then peeked over the low hedge to see what had gotten her so riled up.

“Holy mother of –“ Birger recoiled in shock. In front of his eyes was not a small animal but a young man. Birger first thought that one of the kids from the village had passed out drunk in his garden, but he knew all the local youths by sight and this was not one of them.

“He-hey,” Birger said and reached through the junipers to shake the young man's shoulder. He was pale and filthy, dressed in soaking wet blue jeans and a grey hoodie that was stained green and brown in numerous places. The kid's relatively long hair was a mess with the greasy brown strands tangled in the lowest branches of the junipers. Birger felt the reassuring heat of a living human body when he touched the stranger, but he was clearly not well. There was a makeshift splint around his right leg, consisting of two belts and pieces of pine branches that were much too thick for the purpose.

“Hey,” he tried again, a bit louder this time. He received no visible response. Emma finally ceased her racket and sat quietly next to her owner, looking at the prone person with her large black eyes.

“What the hell.” Birger ran his hands through his short dark brown hair, fingers shaking. As he stood there staring at the kid, unsure what to do next, Emma poked her snout through the gap at the bottom of the junipers and sniffed the stranger's hand. The proximity of her nose seemed to rouse the young man, making his red fingers twitch suddenly.

“Can you hear me?” Birger tried. He took hold of his dog's pink collar and pulled her back, more for her protection than to shelter the stranger from her inquisitive but harmless nature.

The young man scrunched his face slightly, as if in pain. His eyes remained closed. Birger lowered his hand on his shoulder again, gripping it for a moment.

“Vegard,” the young man whispered.

“Oh, is that your name?”

“Vegard.” More strength this time, hoarse voice cracking.

“Okay, Vegard. I'll just pop inside and then come right back,” Birger said and pulled off his jacket. He laid it on the thin kid, taking a moment to tuck the corners under him, and turned around to run full tilt back to the house. Ingvild first showed annoyance at her frantic husband rushing into the kitchen, but soon switched to alarm when he explained the situation between gasps.

“So what do we do?” Birger asked, turning to his wife for guidance, secure in the knowledge that she wouldn't call him an idiot and force him to work things out for himself, as his father had always done in times of crisis. Birger needed to think about things and would usually freeze when immediate action was called for, rendering him useless without someone by his side.

“We carry him inside and then I'll call the ambulance service to take him to the health centre. Probably a lost hiker, like that one last year that ended up knocking on the Jensens' door.”

“He isn't dressed like one.”

“You know how city folk are. They think they can be 'one with nature' or other such nonsense and they frolic around in the wilderness and then we have to waste our scant resources saving them and –”

Birger interrupted his wife before she could launch into one of her rants by raising his hands in a placating gesture. She fell silent and turned back to the porridge, nodding to signal she was listening.

“What if he's dangerous?”

“You said he didn't look well. What can one kid do?”

The couple walked around the hedge side by side, approaching the spot where the stranger lay. Birger led the way, followed by his wife who carried a small but sharp knife in her right hand, hidden behind her back. The young man hadn't moved. He shivered under Birger's jacket and kept whispering the name, voice ragged and unsteady with pain.

“Hey, Vegard!” Birger said as he shook the stranger. He opened his eyes, watery blue, straining to focus on the face in front of him.

“Think you can stand up?” Birger asked. He put his hand on the kid's back, feeling his muscles spasm in an attempt to produce heat.

“Vegard,” was all the stranger said, this time with palpable urgency.

“Yes, I got your name. Come on, try to stand up.”

Birger felt a slap connect with the back of his head.

“Idiot! No one's going to rave about their own name!” Ingvild squatted down next to the young man's head and brought her face close to his. “Who's Vegard?”

Blue eyes immediately found Ingvild's grey ones. The stranger lifted his hand and pointed towards the dense trees.

“Help... Vegard!”

Ingvild followed the direction of his finger.

“Is Vegard still in the forest?”

“Ye-yeah!” The young man managed to gasp out before he started coughing. Ingvild patted his back awkwardly. Her hand came off wet and stained brown. She wiped it against the coarse material of her blue jeans, grimacing in disgust.

“We'll find him. Calm down. We'll bring Vegard home,” she promised. Birger lifted his bushy eyebrows. Usually his wife reserved that tone only for their daughters. It was a soothing croon: soft and reassuring and could placate even the most thunderous temper tantrum. Birger was never the recipient of his wife's vocal tenderness, not in that manner. He tried not to feel envious of the injured stranger and climbed to his feet.

The couple carried the young man between them with Birger holding most of his weight and Ingvild supporting the long legs. They made their way inside with only one dangerous moment when Birger nearly tripped on the thick plastic mat in front of the door. They laid the young man on the brown sofa in their cramped living room and stood back to observe him. The lanky body was too tall to fit comfortably so they propped his feet on top of the armrest, careful with the potential injury on his right leg.

“Take the quad bike and retrace his path,” Ingvild instructed while stuffing a pillow under the stranger's head.

“Okay,” Birger agreed with no further questions. He knew the forest like the back of his hand and would be able to see the signs of someone's passage on the delicate vegetation. A lifetime of hunting and hiking had left him in tune with nature, in a way that someone who hadn't lived his life in a forest could only dream about. Birger assumed the kid was probably one of those adventurers who wanted to experience something primal without truly understanding the first thing about the wilderness. Shaking his head, he turned to go to the shed and get his vehicle out.

Ingvild stayed behind to care for the young man. In the closed warm space, a stark odour started to waft towards her nose: a musky, earthy stank, like dirt and swamp water cut with the sharpness of sweat. She found the small flap of his zipper and pulled it down. As filthy as the garment was, the metal still slid smoothly and parted easily, enabling her to pull his arms free. The procedure reminded her of undressing one of her children, only the body was much larger. She discovered a wet blue t-shirt underneath, stained a suspicious reddish brown in places and torn to shreds at the front.

“Where have you been?” she asked and pulled the ragged hem of his shirt up, revealing wounds that looked fresh on his stomach and dried trails of blood along his sides. Yellowish purple bruises coloured his right half, looking almost as if someone had painted them on his skin. “And what the hell happened to you?”

The sound of the quad bike roaring to life had Ingvild abandoning her task and running to the yard, cursing under her breath as she raced over multi-coloured rugs to reach the door.

“Birger!” she shouted over the noise of the engine. Her husband turned the machine off and looked at her, eyebrows raised in confusion. “Don't leave without supplies!”

Birger felt like slapping his forehead. He had a tendency to act before thinking. He knew it and still he always managed to repeat the same mistakes, over and over. Sheepishly he stepped off the bike and approached his wife.

“Do you even have your phone with you?” she asked from the doorway.

A quick pat against all of his pockets told Birger that he didn't have the rectangular gadget with him. Face red, he returned to the cottage. Ingvild hastily filled their older daughter's small pink backpack with a blanket, an old winter jacket and a bottle of water. Almost as an after-thought, she tossed in a green and purple scarf she had always detested but never thrown away in fear of offending her mother-in-law who had given it as a present to her one Christmas. If it got ruined beyond repair by blood and forest debris while helping save someone's life, she wouldn't complain.

“In case he has bleeding wounds,” Ingvild explained, to the bewilderment of her husband. With a swift kiss on his cheek, Ingvild pushed Birger towards the door. He paused long enough to grab their mobile phone and to stuff it in his jacket pocket. The heavy device barely fit and would most likely not be able to find reception in the middle of the forest, but it created a sense of security if nothing else. It had been a present from Ingvild's parents who worried endlessly about their only daughter for choosing the rugged North over the lively South.

“If you haven't found anything after an hour, just come back,” Ingvild said. Birger grunted his agreement. He would most likely be returning with a corpse anyway, if there even was a second kid in the forest. Sometimes the city folk entered the wilderness with substances that were not entirely natural in origin and claimed to see the strangest things. He turned his engine on again and left the yard.

Ingvild vacated the kitchen when she heard her daughter's voice and hastened her steps. Karoline was asking the man who he was and if he was sleepy. Tina was hiding behind her older sister, thumb in mouth but eyes directed to the stranger on the couch.

“Have you two washed up yet?” Ingvild asked and gently gripped Karoline's shoulders to guide her away from the living room.

“Who's he?” she asked, digging her heels in the carpet and leaning against her mother's hands.

“A visitor, you can't bother him.”

“What's his name?”

“Vegard,” Ingvild said without thinking.

She ushered her daughters into the bathroom and returned to the kitchen. By a stroke of luck or latent genius, she'd had the presence of mind to turn off the stove when Birger had burst to the room so suddenly earlier, and the porridge was not burned. She gave it a vigorous stir and heaped two bowls full of it for the girls. She filled a glass with cold water from the tap and returned to the living room to find the young man still asleep, undisturbed by the curious children.

After a brief consideration, Ingvild decided that the pants should come off too. She struggled with the wet material but managed to open the copper button and unzip the jeans. She pulled them down to the man's knees but had to stop to dismantle the make-shift splint around his right shin. The buckles on the belts were caked with dirt and small bits of vegetation, making it difficult to unfasten them. She was so focused on the removal of the contraption that she failed to sacrifice one thought to the reason he had it around his leg.

When Ingvild opened the belts and removed the thick branches from around his ankle, the young man woke up screaming. She heard small feet patter outside the living room in distress and yelled at the children that everything was fine, commanding them to go eat their breakfast. She also shushed the young man, but he was not cognisant enough to be aware of his actions. Ingvild made a hasty decision and pulled the wet blue jeans clean off him to inflict all the pain in one go before letting him recover. Eventually all he did was pant silently and Ingvild relaxed.

“Sorry, sorry. But it's done now,” she said and tucked a greasy strand of hair behind his unusually small ear. “Wet stuff's almost gone now, let's get you warmed up.”

“Mamma, are you playing?” Karoline asked, puzzled by the contrast between the yelling and her mother's calm reaction.

“Just eat your breakfast,” Ingvild said while concentrating on wiggling the young man out of his wet t-shirt. The garment was tight around the shoulders, but Ingvild managed to pull it free from his arms with little trouble. He seemed to have no sudden pain and the limbs moved freely. She discarded his clothes in a pile on the floor and covered him with a fluffy red fleece blanket. He moaned quietly and for a moment Ingvild thought she had inadvertently hurt him again before she realised he was reacting positively to the warmth.

“Drink a little?” she suggested after a moment. The young man didn't stir, but she had enough experience of feeding reluctant babies to not be hindered. She lifted his head, trying not to cringe at the slick feeling under her fingers, and poured a small amount of water into his mouth. The young man swallowed reflexively and parted his dry, cracked lips for more.

“Not just yet,” Ingvild said. She assumed the stranger had been without water for some time, judging by how filthy he was and by the lack of supplies with him. He wouldn't look quite so ragged if he'd only been in the forest for an afternoon.

Ingvild relocated to the kitchen to give her hands a thorough washing and to make sure her daughters were eating. They were shovelling porridge in and trading meaningful glances with each other, accompanied by poorly hidden grins. Ingvild knew they were up to something and it didn't take a genius to figure out it had something to do with their surprise visitor.

“Now listen, girls,” Ingvild started in her best no-nonsense voice. “Our guest is very ill and needs to be left alone. You are not to go to the living room at all while he's here. Is this understood?”

“But mamma –“

“Karoline.”

“Yes,” the older daughter conceded. The younger one was nodding vigorously, ever miming her sister.

Reasonably certain that her progeny would behave, Ingvild sat down in the chair by their telephone and dialled the ambulance service's number. Birger's brother worked there and she was hoping he would be on call that morning.

“Hey Jørgen! Think you could swing by our place in an hour or so in the company car?” Ingvild asked and immediately had to calm down her brother-in-law by assuring him that nothing was wrong with her or the family.

“I don't know if there will be a second kid, but the one here seems to be in pretty rough shape.”

Ingvild listened to Jørgen map out a quick plan of action that would lead to the young man or men being out of the Rydmanns' hands in approximately one hour, giving Birger enough time to return before the ambulance arrived.

“Excellent, thank you.”

Ingvild hung up and looked at the owl-shaped clock hanging on their wooden wall. Birger had been gone for a bit over fifteen minutes. She wondered if he would return with a corpse and how she'd explain it to the girls.

*****

The stillness of the misty morning was broken by the rhythmic roar of an engine. Birger was going slowly in the forest, letting his bright blue all terrain vehicle crawl forwards while he looked for signs of passage through the vegetation. So far the young man's path had been easy to follow. The heathers were trampled and there were occasional squished berries to indicate his nocturnal progression. Birger kept driving, impressed by how far the kid had gone. It wasn't easy to navigate the forest in the dark and the wide impressions on the vegetation hinted that he had actually crawled the last leg of his journey.

The forest thickened and Birger recognised landmarks that told him he was nearing _the Rock of Sacrifice_ , an ancient place of ritual for the old gods. Birger shook his head in disgust. He'd heard tales of what people had done on top of the tall rock, basking in direct moonlight. The untamed wilderness held many secrets.

Before Birger could see the rock, he noticed something that didn't belong to the environment. It was directly on the trail he had been following and it soon revealed itself to be what Birger was looking for. He brought his vehicle close and killed the engine. Stepping off the bike, Birger removed his hat. This one was a goner. Dressed only in a short-sleeved shirt and soaked black jeans, it seemed impossible that he could've survived through the night or however long it had taken for the other one to crawl to the Rydmanns' garden. The young man's face was white and his brown eyes half-lidded, staring unseeingly at the grey sky as he laid on his back, unmoving.

“Shame you didn't pass on a more beautiful day,” Birger whispered and put his hand on the stranger's forehead, intending to close the eyes for eternal rest. His motion was aborted when he felt the heat against his skin.

“Heavens above!” Birger put his fingers against the young man's neck, pressing different spots until he found the one where a gentle beat met the calloused pads of his fingertips.

“Heavens above!” Birger repeated with emphasis. He had not expected to find anyone, certainly not alive. For a moment he couldn't act, mind latching onto the exclamation and refusing to give room for anything else. Then a calm descended upon Birger and he took the small pink backpack down. With shaking hands he pulled the zipper open and emptied the contents to the mossy forest floor.

The blanket was his first priority. Birger plucked it off the ground and shook it open. He covered the young man – _Vegard. This is Vegard._ – with it, roughly tucking the edges under him to trap the warmth in, imitating the actions he had performed earlier with the first kid they encountered in their garden. As he was manoeuvring the young man, Birger noticed that his left arm was wrapped in filthy rags, stained brown and red and smelling foul. He ignored the obvious injury, choosing to focus on tasks he considered more urgent instead.

Birger sat down on the mossy ground, cringing at the moisture that immediately saturated the seat of his pants, and lifted the limp weight of the young man to lean against his chest. Vegard made no sound or gave any indication of consciousness. Birger reached for the water bottle, kept cool in the morning chill, and unscrewed the blue plastic cap. He slipped the mouth of the bottle between Vegard's cracked lips and tipped it. Most of the water flowed down among the thick dark growth of stubble on the young man's chin, but some he managed to swallow. Encouraged by the success, Birger poured more water in. The young man sputtered and coughed, causing Birger to pause his efforts.

“Okay, that was too much, huh?” Birger utilised the tone he had used when his daughters were babies and he sometimes fed them. The person leaning against him was equally helpless and the weight of knowing he held a life in his hands was almost overwhelming. Birger was a simple man. He worked as a janitor at the largest local hotel, doing his job methodically and diligently. His daily decisions were limited to choosing between a rake or a hoe for unclogging the gutters around the hotel building. Having the power to end a life if he so willed was outside his sphere of experience. He didn't know what to do with the knowledge so he resorted to familiar behaviour, learned and made into a habit in the not too distant past with his children.

“Are you cold? Let's put that jacket on you,” Birger cooed and reached for the dark grey material of the puffy old winter jacket his wife had packed for him. Birger lifted the young man's upper body off himself and managed to slip his right arm into the sleeve with ease. He stopped to think for a moment with the wrapped left one. There was obviously an injury hiding under the filthy rags, but Birger had no knowledge of the severity. He thought about his wife's instructions about bleeding wounds and grabbed the colourful scarf off the ground. Holding Vegard's left arm against his body, Birger wrapped the woollen textile around the narrow torso, trapping the wounded arm in place. Pleased with his problem solving abilities, Birger finished putting the jacket on the kid.

“There, that'll warm you up.” Birger gave the young man more water and he reflexively swallowed again, leaving only a thin trail running down his chin. After the small success, Birger adjusted his grip on the stranger and stood up with him, struggling a bit under the weight. “Let's go home.”

As Vegard was unconscious and couldn't tense himself, getting him onto the quad bike turned out to be a challenge. Birger easily lifted the slim young man on the vehicle, but since he wasn't supporting himself, Birger had trouble climbing in behind him without allowing him to slip to the ground. After thinking for a moment, Birger leaned the young man's chest against the handlebars, his head lolling forwards above the hood of the vehicle. Birger gathered the backpack and quickly climbed behind Vegard. He wrapped the blanket around him and put his arms against the chest of the smaller man, avoiding the injured arm hidden beneath the puffy jacket. He didn't notice the fresh trickle of blood staining the side of his bike.

The familiar roar of the engine pierced the air once more. Squeezing the gas handle while holding the weight of one fully grown adult was an intricate balancing act, but Birger managed it. Greasy black curls brushed against his cheek, leaving the skin unpleasantly slick. The hair also had the repulsive aroma of damp moss and musty water. Birger ignored it all. He held one arm around the warm body, feeling the movement of the ribs through the thick winter jacket. As long as the lungs kept inflating and deflating against his grip, he could continue. If that subtle movement ceased, Birger would be lost.

The sun peeked out behind the clouds when Birger guided his vehicle through the gap in the low juniper hedge to their yard. His passenger had been quiet throughout the journey, laying limp against Birger's wide chest. At some point he started shivering, muscles jerking almost convulsively, but that was the only noticeable change in his condition. Birger secured his grip and parked the quad bike in front of the door.

He had only managed to disembark himself and was awkwardly holding Vegard in an upright position by the arm when Ingvild slammed the wooden door open and stared at the couple in the yard with wide eyes.

“Is he – ?”

“Alive,” Birger grunted as he bodily lifted the young man in his arms. He stepped into the cottage and hurried to the living room. Since their only sofa was occupied, Birger laid his burden on the floor. The first stranger they had rescued stirred when he heard the movement in the room, or perhaps he felt the presence of new people. He opened his eyes and blinked them slowly, looking at Birger in confusion.

“Vegard's here,” Birger said and pulled the jacket's zipper down to reveal the face of the kid he had just carried inside. When the young man on the sofa saw the one on the floor, the reaction was instantaneous.

“Vegard!” the blue-eyed kid screeched and threw himself off the couch, grunting in pain but scrambling madly across the floor on all fours to reach his friend. He grabbed the right hand and smoothed the filthy black curls off the forehead with trembling fingers, breathing hard.

“Vegard,” the young man whispered. Birger shuddered at the raw fear apparent in the vocalisation. His imagination was too limited to conjure up a voice more pained. His heart ached at the mere idea of having brought back news of the other one's death.

“Help him,” the young man pleaded, piercing Birger with his eyes, allowing all his despair and waning hope to manifest through the glittering blue depths. “Help... him.”

Tears filled the eyes and Birger had to look away. He turned towards the doorway, taken aback when he realised his family was standing there silently. Ingvild looked unimpressed and the girls were hiding behind her, transfixed by the strangers in the room.

“Jørgen said they'll be here in,” Ingvild checked the owl-shaped clock, “about twenty minutes. That carpet is ruined.” Ingvild pointed at the thick white rug spanning most of the living room floor's length. Already the moisture from the dark-haired young man's clothes was starting to saturate the material and dye it a dull brown.

Birger looked at his wife helplessly. Why would she reprimand him at such a heart-wrenching moment and in front of the girls – again.

“He's really cold, wasn't going to put him on the bare floor,” Birger explained, a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

Ingvild huffed and turned away. The children followed their mother, allowing Emma to run into the room. She started barking at the strangers and Birger hushed her. The taller of the boys had lain down next to the dark-haired one, hands still clasped together. He was staring intently at the unconscious one, as if willing him to rouse. The smaller man stayed still, only occasionally twitching with a stronger shiver.

“Get some more water in them,” Ingvild said and startled Birger. She had returned with a glass in hands. Birger nodded and reached for the purple cup. In doing so, his fingers brushed against his wife's. They were cold and wet from retrieving the water from the tap, and they sent a jolt through him. Ingvild allowed the touch to linger for a moment and gave her husband a gentle smile. In a wordless agreement, they chose one young man each and tended to him. Ingvild continued with the taller one, gently nudging him to sit up and drink more from the glass she retrieved for him from the coffee table. Birger lifted the dark-haired one to lean against his chest again and held the purple cup against his lips. Light hit the coloured glass and created sickly reflections on his white cheeks. He looked lifeless but Birger could still feel the motions of his breathing and the gradually increasing heat of his skin, reassuring him that he still remained with them.

“Well done,” Ingvild encouraged the brown-haired one. He had finished his water and Ingvild was helping him lie down next to his friend again. She covered him with the red fleece blanket from the couch and smoothed his hair back. Birger ignored the gentle tone his wife used.

“I'm late for work,” Birger noted.

“I called Mats and said you had errands to run so you'll come later today.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Birger slid out from behind Vegard and settled him back on the floor. The taller stranger moved closer to him, cheeks nearly touching each other. With a wistful sigh, Birger went to the kitchen to quickly eat something before he would rush off to work, ready to forget these young men ever entered their lives and slip back into the safety of routine.


	2. Chapter 2

Bård's return to awareness was a long string of separate moments. His rapidly blinking eyes revealed the light brown wood of a low ceiling, full of knot holes and lines. He distantly heard a man and a woman talk, mentioning places he had never visited and alluding to taking someone somewhere. He floated away, content to let go with the sensation of something warm and familiar pressed against his side, making him feel safe.

When he next surfaced, his perception shifted and suddenly the cosy feeling was replaced by cold air, followed by the harsh sound of car doors slamming shut. He lifted his head in alarm to look around, but the pain behind his eyes urged him to lower his lids and relax his neck back against the sturdy but pliant surface beneath him. The steady thrum of an engine reverberated through his skull.

The moments started slipping by faster, allowing Bård only a brief glimpse of the blue sky before a white ceiling filled his vision, this one moving past at a dizzying rate. Silence followed, during which Bård could almost climb close enough to the surface to connect with the conscious level of existence, but the world escaped his futilely reaching fingers again. When the deafening roar of a helicopter, perhaps the Sea King itself, filled his ears, Bård lost himself in confusion, unable to grasp the too frequent shifts in his surroundings. He welcomed the long stretch of blackness that followed.

*****

Bård knew he was lying down only by virtue of feeling the mattress pressing against his backside. His head was spinning with the waves of vertigo rocking him relentlessly, making him lose track of his own centre. His mouth was painfully dry and stiff. Opening his eyes felt like an adventure that would be too much for his confused mind to handle. He remained in the cocoon of self-imposed seclusion and tried to ignore the vague feeling that something wasn't right. He relaxed his face and prepared to slip away.

“Bård?”

_Mother?_

“Here, sweetheart, take a small sip. Only a small one. Very good.”

The cool water slid down his throat, bringing instant relief with it. The touch of cold against his lips made his head clearer, working as an anchor with which to fasten himself to the physical sensation. He followed the chain to the surface and forced his eyes open, blinking in the dim light.

“Mamma?”

“Yes, I'm here.”

“Where... where?”

“We're in Tromsø University Hospital.”

Bård had meant to ask about his brother, but the mention of the northern city made him pause. The stunned look on his face must've begged for an explanation, for his mother launched into a wordy monologue about the recent events. Bård couldn't capture the meanings: the syllables flew past faster than he could absorb them. He closed his eyes and let his mother's familiar voice escort him back to the soothing darkness.

*****

The white ceiling became a well-explored sight. Bård observed how the illumination from an open door created shadows on the uneven surface. As the sun rose higher, the amount of light in the room increased, allowing him to make out more details. He was lying on a reasonably comfortable bed next to a window with a white metal radiator under it, mounted on a white-painted concrete wall. There was a table by his head with a box of tissues and a pitcher of water accompanied by a small stack of plastic cups on it. To his left there was a blue and white curtain and a metal stand with a bag of transparent liquid hanging from it. From the bag a thin plastic tube ran down to his left hand and disappeared beneath his skin. Opposite him a small television sat on a shelf and reflected the rising sun on its narrow screen.

Studying the room wasn't riveting enough to distract Bård from the intrusive, all-encompassing ache manifesting itself all over his body, focusing heavily on his right leg and ribs. His head also joined the choir of pain and he was so thirsty his mouth felt like it was covered by a layer of hair. With the physical sensations nailing him inescapably to reality, sleep refused to reclaim him. He spent the early hours of the morning listening to the life around him, hoping to lose himself in snippets of half-heard conversation.

Bård became aware of being the only occupant in the room. He couldn't hear anything from the immediate vicinity, only from the corridor beyond the open door. People were walking past, some talking quietly to each other, some using crutches or canes to get by, giving their passage a thumping rhythm. When the tantalising aromas of breakfast started flowing in, Bård expected someone to enter with his share, eager to seize the opportunity to ask questions. The chance never came: his room was by-passed by the people pushing the cart and distributing plates of porridge and sandwiches to other rooms along the corridor. Not being overcome by hunger at the moment, Bård could forgive such a transgression. A smile tugged at his lips when he thought about how outraged his brother would be at a missed meal.

The sudden avalanche of terror took Bård by surprise. He realised knew nothing of Vegard's whereabouts or condition. The last memory of his brother he had was from the darkened forest, lying unconscious on a bed of wet moss. The pessimistic side of him whispered that there could be only one reason for him and Vegard to be separated at the hospital. He refused to believe it. After everything they'd been through, his brother couldn't be dead.

“Good morning!” The familiar, cheery voice of his mother made Bård snap his head towards the open door.

“What's wrong, sweetheart?”

“Where's Vegard?” Bård asked, feeling an uncomfortable sting in his throat.

“Here, let me help you drink a bit.”

“Where is he?!” Bård shouted, hand almost automatically rising to massage his neck.

“He's still in intensive care. He'll be alright.”

Bård recognised the attempt at deceit. He allowed his mother to hold a cup against his lips and swallowed some lukewarm water before he demanded further information.

“You wouldn't lie about him being alive, right?” The depth of raw desperation in Bård's voice made him cringe.

“Of course not! He'll be fine.”

“I want to see him,” Bård said, not caring that he sounded like an obstinate child. Images of Vegard lying in the forest flickered through his mind, blurry like his vision had been. He had left him alone and defenceless, at the mercy of the elements and passing predators. In the glimpses of awareness Bård had after leaving the forest, there were no moments of recollection of his brother among them.

“He has to be alive. I promised to go back,” Bård whispered, fearing the consequences of his failure to return.

“You can't get up yet. But I'll take a picture of him for you, I remember how to use this,” his mother said and pulled out her mobile phone, a new type with a camera built in it. After Bård nodded, she slipped it back into her cavernous black purse, perched on her lap as she sat by the bed.

“Why can't I get up yet?” Bård asked and looked into her eyes. She was smiling, but Bård could tell it was a façade. Her dimples came out with genuine smiles and there was not even the smallest indentation visible on her full cheeks.

“The doctors need to look at you first. You had surgery on that ankle.”

“What? When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Oh.”

“It's Friday now. You were found early on Wednesday morning.”

The weekday mattered little to Bård. He remembered the night with the distant stars and his brother's failing body, left on the cold ground, life slowly seeping out of it. What name that night carried was inconsequential.

“But Vegard's okay?” Bård vocalised the concern constantly filling his mind.

“He'll be fine,” his mother reaffirmed. Bård noted that she only used the future tense.

“He's not doing well, is he?”

“He _will_ be fine.” Bård couldn't tell whether his mother was repeating a truth told to her or clinging to a lie of her own fabrication.

“Can you go see him now?”

“They don't let visitors in yet.”

“So where exactly am I?”

“You're in the regular ward in Tromsø University Hospital. They helilifted you here from Kautokeino. How on earth did you two end up there?”

“I'm tired,” Bård said and pulled his blanket higher. He saw a flash of alarm on his mother's face as he closed his eyes. He knew it was unfair towards her to withdraw into himself so suddenly, but he couldn't care at the moment. The flood of scant information and overwhelming emotions drained him to the point where nothing mattered. He blocked the world out.

*****

The white ceiling greeted Bård when he next woke. Morning or evening, he couldn't tell in the artificial illumination in the room. The scene outside the window – a blissfully urban view of the neighbouring building – was muted by dark grey clouds covering the sky. The sounds of the hospital life around him accompanied him to full wakefulness. He was in pain.

A young blonde nurse stepped in soon after Bård decided he couldn't go back to sleep. He made an effort to greet the man politely, trying to suppress the foul mood souring his countenance. After checking something on the IV stand, the nurse asked Bård if he needed anything. Bård tried not to beg or whine when he requested more painkillers. He was promised to receive something shortly with a reassuring smile. Bård watched the blue-clad figure disappear through the door with expectant longing.

He wondered how far the intensive care unit was. Maybe after the throbbing pain in his leg was diminished, he could go see his brother. His parting words continued to haunt him, crushing him under the weight of the promise he broke. Would Vegard remember the night and hold a grudge?

The nurse soon returned with a plump transparent bag in his hands. He smiled at the young man in the bed as he approached.

“I'll hook this up and you'll feel better. Maybe then you'd like to eat something?”

Bård couldn't identify even the smallest pangs of hunger. He said as much, only to be faced with the unwavering smile again, encouraging him to try and see how it went. Bård agreed, if only so he could fully concentrate on observing the nurse insert the end of the tube to the port in his arm. He fought off a shudder.

“Can I walk around?”

“Do you feel like walking around?” The nurse asked as he wrote something on a small notepad he dug out from his pocket.

“I don't want to be confined to the bed.”

“After you've eaten, we can see about crutches if you feel up for it. The wheelchair is also an option if you're still unsteady from the anaesthesia.”

“Could you take me to the intensive care unit? I need to see my brother.”

“Let's get you on your feet first. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I _need_ to see him.”

“The doctor will talk with you soon. There's a button by your side, you can press it if you need something.”

The nurse disappeared through the door again. Bård thought he left something unsaid but he lacked the strength to challenge the man. The medication started to kick in and he felt the sharp throbbing subside to a dull ache he could ignore. He closed his eyes, letting the never-distant pull of sleep grab him fully.

*****

“Here, taken not ten minutes ago, right before I came to you.”

Bård squinted at the small screen of his mother's phone. His borrowed glasses didn't quite match his prescription, leaving his vision unfocused. He could still make out the familiar mass of dark hair on the photo. The face he was trying to discern was covered by a plastic mask with a tube running out of it, obscuring the features almost beyond recognition.

A small part of Bård still suspected deceit, that his mother was hiding the truth in order to spare him. He feared to believe.

“Has he asked about me? Is he mad?”

“Mad? No, honey, Vegard's been asleep since he got here.”

“And you're not just saying that? He really is alive?”

“Why would I lie?” His mother seemed genuinely confused. She held on to her black leather purse with both hands, knuckles clearly defined against the skin.

“I don't know! Maybe he's dead and you don't want to tell me!” Bård yelled, his harsh voice echoing in the bare walls of the small room.

“He's not dead!” Their mother shouted, a wavering edge of hysteria in her tone. “Don't even say that!”

“Then tell me what's going on!” Bård begged, sitting up on his bed, holding the thin blanket against his chest like a flimsy shield.

“He'll be okay,” his mother said, repeating the words she had clung to since Bård woke up. She stared defiantly in her son's blue eyes, not a hint of a smile on her worn face. “He'll be fine.”

Bård handed the phone back. His mother slipped it into her handbag without a word. Both looked away from each other for a moment, allowing the sounds of hospital life to fill the room.

“How is he?” Bård finally asked. “And where's pappa? How long have you been here? Who brought us here? What's going on?”

“Easy,” his mother quelled the flow of questions with a single softly spoken word. She adjusted her position on the chair and lowered her purse to the floor by her feet. “Your father couldn't take any time off from work. I've been here since Thursday afternoon. A couple in Kautokeino – the Rydmann family – found you in their garden and went back for Vegard after you told them he was still in the forest. You've been mostly asleep since the rescue. And like the doctor already told you, they fixed your ankle in surgery. You just need to take it easy now and eat a lot.”

The orthopaedist had shown Bård x-ray images of his leg and the metal spikes holding it together. He had been amused by the cyborg look and knew Vegard would appreciate it too. He couldn't remember the rest of the conversation as it had been lost in a sudden onslaught of hazy memories and half-heard sounds, and the overwhelming, chilling fear for his brother.

“And Vegard?”

His mother sighed.

“He'll be –“

“ – fine, I know. But please tell me something more, something concrete,” Bård pleaded, blue eyes piercing his mother's. The desperate need to know must've been apparent on his face, for his mother took a deep breath and lowered her eyes to her clasped hands.

“They said even half a day's delay could've proven fatal,” she started with a quiet, serious voice. Bård held absolutely still as he listened.

“You can read his papers later, but they're full of medical jargon. To put it in simple terms, the injury on his arm is infected and he's in really bad shape.” Tears were shining in her eyes, but she managed a small, bitter-sweet smile and held them in. Bård's mind wanted to block out all the details and latch onto the one piece of information that truly mattered.

“But he'll live?”

“He will, yes. They're still treating him, they said they think they removed all the... all the bad stuff. It should be fine. There's more to do but they think he'll live.”

“Mamma?” Bård asked, watching in alarm as his mother's face twisted and tears started leaking from her eyes. She dug out a tissue from her purse and hid behind it.

“They said he was at the very edge of life, pulling through on stubbornness alone.” She barely managed to get the words out, voice quivering with suppressed emotion and muffled by the soft paper.

“Mamma, calm down. Hey, they said it'll be okay, right?” Bård didn't know where the calm composure in him sprung up from. The distress so obvious in his mother subdued the fear in him, pushing it to the background to simmer in silence.

“It fucking won't!” she suddenly shouted, shocking Bård to the core with the words he'd never heard either of his parents utter with such violent strength before.

“You don't even know! They cut off part of his arm! He'll never be the same again if he lives!”

Bård's serenity was shattered by the short, damning phrase. _If he lives._ Cold disbelief tried to blanket the boiling panic, but tendrils slipped through. His mother's voice faded, the room faded, his grip on reality faded.

Bård knew no more.

*****

His heartbeat was a physical pounding in his ears. The flat white walls of the hospital seemed to slip by too fast as a tall nurse pushed Bård's wheelchair along a corridor punctured by blue doors with small windows on them. They were heading towards a pair of glass doors at the end of it, marked ICU in large black letters.

“Still feeling okay?” the nurse asked. Her voice was low and pleasant, and combined with her dark red hair and delicate features, Bård would've spared her a second, appreciative glance on a typical day.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Bård replied, keeping his eyes on the floor. He tried counting how many days it had been since he last saw his brother, but time had become fluid and he couldn't differentiate between the uniform hours of lying in bed, feeling pain, nausea and hunger, constantly plagued by the gnawing fear and pressing worry invading his dreams and colouring his conscious thoughts. This trip to see his brother was the first ray of light in a bleak existence and even it was dimmed by the dread of what he would face.

Less than a week had passed since Bård first woke up alone and saw a crafted ceiling instead of the natural canopy of green and limitless blue in the forest. Amidst all the adversity of their experiences, he'd constantly had his brother by his side, comforting him and grounding him even as a silent, ill figure at the edge of his vision. The loss of his presence was almost a physical ache. There was strength in Vegard: a vivacious spark that even repeat encounters with a monster couldn't extinguish, and he always shared that with his brother.

And now that spark was down to a soft glimmer. Bård feared he would be seeing his brother for the last time and the image that he'd have to carry with him for the rest of his life would be of a withered, defeated creature, obscured by the best efforts of modern medicine that still couldn't fight off simple primordial powers.

The frailty of the human condition was on Bård's mind as the nurse opened the glass door. She deftly manoeuvred the wheelchair in and headed to the right. They passed two open doors before she stopped in front of a closed one.

“We'll only stay for five minutes. You can touch him, but gently, don't jostle him needlessly,” she reminded Bård with kind steel in her voice. She had explained about the internal fixation they had performed on his brother's arm on their way to the ICU and Bård had no desire to hear more on the subject. Even the memory made shivers run over his shoulders and a blue tinge twist the edges of his vision. Terms like 'unhealthy soft tissue' and 'contaminated fragments' that previously held no importance to him had become frighteningly real when applied to his brother. And commonplace words like 'infection' swelled into their true magnitude.

Bård belatedly nodded in response to the nurse's words to signal he understood the severity of the situation. The pounding in his ears grew louder.

“And tell me if you start to feel bad and want to leave.”

“Su-sure.”

The nurse pulled the door open, offering Bård a clear view of the small room. The limited space was dominated by a bed and more medical equipment than Bård could name. She pushed him forwards, closer to the raised railings, not pausing even when she heard Bård's audible gasp.

Vegard nearly disappeared amongst the machinery keeping him alive and measuring his condition. His face was partially hidden beneath an oxygen mask strapped to place, the elastic band pressing his limp curls against his skull. Bård was afraid to touch. His brother looked too fragile to bear even the whisper of a caress. He looked at the fingers closest to him, on the uninjured right hand, with an IV line running in the back of it. The other arm... Bård did not dare shift his gaze.

“You can take his hand,” the nurse urged, following the young man's line of sight.

Bård hesitated. His eyes slowly snaked across Vegard's body, observing the small mound of his middle lifting the light blue blanket he was covered with. The injured arm was hidden from sight by bandages. Bård spied a tube running out of it and disappearing under the bed. His mother's words rang in his mind. Somewhere under all that white cloth, his brother would forever be missing the tissue they had needed to remove in their efforts to save his life. He wasn't sure how to feel about it.

The permanence of the consequences of what had transpired made Bård's breathing pick up pace. This was so far beyond scars that he wasn't sure he even understood the magnitude of it. This was his brother, reduced and beaten, at the edge of giving in.

This was his brother, alive and clinging to life.

Suddenly it was no longer difficult for Bård to grab his brother's hand. He slid his fingers under Vegard's and squeezed. His skin was rough and warm: familiar.

“Vegard?” Bård asked, feeling foolish talking to his brother with the nurse in the room. “I know you can't hear me, but... well. Isn't this stereotypical, talking to an unconscious person?”

Bård glanced at the nurse. She was studying the black screen of a flat machine, seemingly unaware of him speaking. Under this cloak of discretion she offered him, Bård turned back towards his brother.

“We're in Tromsø. You missed a perfectly good helicopter ride. Well I missed it too, but mamma told me about it. I bet you would've –“ Bård cut himself off when his words started losing their solidity. He blinked sudden excess moisture off his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. All walls fell.

“I'm so sorry! I left you there alone and unprotected. And I promised to return but I didn't. I'm so, so sorry!” A burning twisted Bård's mouth and he fell silent. The wave of emotion couldn't be hindered and the first tears slid down his cheeks, accompanied by wet sniffing. He lifted their joined hands against his face, cringing at the heat emanating off his brother's skin. The plastic tube coming out from the back of Vegard's hand pressed against his cheek uncomfortably but he barely felt it.

“I'm so sorry,” Bård kept repeating between his shuddering gasps, as if reciting a spell that would keep his brother anchored to this world. “Please come back! I'll never break my word again!”

A firm hand grasped Bård's and made him lower his brother's back on the bed.

“It's time to return,” the nurse said to Bård, holding her other hand on his shoulder. The kindness felt like a violation.

Bård wanted to protest but he couldn't find his voice. His teeth were pressed together, trying to prevent another hitchy breath from escaping. Listlessly he sat in the wheelchair and watched Vegard disappear behind a closed door as the nurse took him away from his brother.


	3. Chapter 3

Bård ate with no desire for the warm food in front of him. The meat stew was tasty enough and his body was craving for the sustenance, but his bleak mind derived no pleasure from the act. Mechanically he lifted the fork to his mouth to chew and swallow the soft vegetables and the tiny pieces of beef, over and over until the plate was cleared down to the last pea. He felt the weight of the food in his stomach and basked in a vague sense of accomplishment. At least he had managed to nourish his body that day, even if he was good for nothing else.

His ankle was throbbing unpleasantly and his head ached viciously. The grey clouds outside his window reminded him of the forest with their ominous presence. He wanted to be happy over Anders' demise, to jubilate the elimination of the threat that had covered a portion of his life, but he felt nothing. When he laid awake at nights in the dark room, he expected to be scared or to feel unprotected like he had for so long, but there were no twinges of emotion. Even the worry about his brother was muted: numbness consumed him.

Bård ran his fingers through his hair, snagging the tube at the back of his left hand in his long locks. His body had been satisfied for now and he was content to lie still in the hazy afternoon light. He was in pain but the level was tolerable enough to demand no immediate attention. His mind, as a stark contrast, was in chaos. Making sense of his emotions was usually like studying a tangle of threads and following each individual strand to find its festering source. But now each string led to cold nothingness that he couldn't outsmart or overpower. When faced with the utter lack of anything, he was helpless.

Desperate for a distraction, Bård picked up the newspaper his mother had brought with her in the morning. She was out to run errands and grab some lunch, with the promise to return as soon as she could. Bård didn't know what pressing matters she needed to attend to in the unfamiliar city and hadn't found the spark within himself to ask. The paper in his hands declared that the winter would be exceptionally mild and that a child had drowned in Bergen. A twinge of homesickness pulled at him, making him yearn for the privacy of his apartment, away from everyone's scrutiny.

The other bed in Bård's room was unoccupied. He kept fervently wishing that he would one day wake up and his brother would be lying there. The last doctor he had bothered about the subject had said that Vegard was improving as expected. Bård's expectations must not match the doctors', for he saw no change in the slack features that haunted him whenever he staggered to the intensive care unit on his crutches. He wasn't strictly allowed to visit as often as he did, especially late at night and early in the morning, but the staff looked the other way. Maybe they felt sorry for him, maybe they gave him special treatment thanks to his celebrity status, Bård didn't care.

The newspaper in his hands was blessedly void of any stories about him or Vegard. The first article he had come across had made him throw the paper against a wall in a bout of irrational anger. Phrases like _critical condition_ and _fighting for his life_ made him hate whoever had written such sinister trash. After the short display of temper, he had cried like a child, clinging to his mother and begging for someone to take the events back, to make none of it real. A cool numbness had followed, still blanketing him under its impassive embrace.

Although the port in his hand remained, Bård wasn't currently hooked up to anything, leaving him free to roam around without having to tow the IV stand with him. He looked at the simple metal crutches with black plastic hand grips leaning against the chair in front of him. He could take a quick trip to see his brother and be back before his mother returned. Getting up seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, but Bård pushed the unwillingness to move aside and sat up properly. He wanted to be there when Vegard finally woke up, to make sure he wasn't alone, thinking Bård had abandoned him again.

Bård sometimes wondered if Vegard had regained consciousness after he left him in the forest. Would he have been scared and confused, not knowing where his brother had gone or what was happening. From what had been told to him, Bård knew that he had kept calling Vegard's name and thus ensured that the people whose garden he had ended up in had known to go look for another man in the woods. The comfort it brought was feeble. He had sworn to return but never fulfilled the promise.

_That's not me_ , Bård convinced himself. He was not the type of person who cared so little for his word. He got the crutches under his hands and stood up. After waiting for a moment to allow the vertigo to settle to make sure he'd stay on his feet, he started the long shuffle down the corridor, up three floors and down another longer corridor. The distance between him and his brother seemed greater than the steps required to cross it.

Bård entered the intensive care unit and nodded at a familiar nurse coming out of the room next to Vegard's, where some hiker who had gotten lost and injured was being treated. Bård had no interest in all the useless information, but his mother insisted on sharing with him every piece of gossip she collected. Sometimes Bård listened to her, most of the time he let the words wash over him in a comforting cascade of familiar background noise. He made his way to the door that opened into a private room on the eastern side of the hospital, equipped with one small window. In the mornings the sun created painfully bright beams on the beige floor, making it blaze with fire. In the evenings the darkness rose from behind the forest covering a hillside on the horizon, isolating the room with its own reflection on the glass.

The mood in the room was static. Bård limped to the padded chair placed at his brother's bedside and sat down gingerly. The machines were still present and active, proudly displaying numbers and lines that meant nothing to him. All he cared about was trapped in the bed amongst them, lying immobile. Bård noted that the mask had been removed from his brother's face and only a thin tube was placed under his nose and tucked behind his ears. The improved view of his face only emphasised how pale and lifeless he looked. The dark stubble on Vegard's chin was on the verge of becoming a proper beard. Bård hated it. His brother didn't prefer long facial hair, he'd never allow it to grow so much. But Vegard was not in control now.

“Hey,” Bård greeted the unconscious form of his brother, like he did every time he visited. He knew waiting for an answer was futile. “The stew was pretty good today. You're missing out on some surprisingly decent meals by lazying about.”

Bård grasped Vegard's right hand and gave the warm fingers a squeeze.

“Running a fever again, huh? Can't they seriously get that infection under control, this isn't the goddamn middle ages.”

Footsteps outside the room approached and then faded out. Judging by the sharp clicks, someone with high heels was walking rapidly towards the other end of the ward. Life went on around them and Bård felt a constriction of loneliness in his chest.

“Mamma's coming over later, she said she'll have a surprise for me.”

Bård fell silent and focused on forcing the burning sensation behind his eyes to disappear.

“I meant to come back. I really thought I'd make it. Out and back in again, leading the cavalry to come collect your ass out of the forest.”

The tears fell despite his efforts to suppress them. Bård sniffed. He let go of Vegard's hand and grabbed a tissue from a box on the nearby metal table next to the bed. He blew his nose and wiped the moisture off his cheeks with aggressive strokes.

“I royally fucked that up. But I'm here now, and it's time for you to return too. Enough of this,” Bård said and closed his eyes. The walls were too narrow in the room and the ceiling too low. He didn't know how much more he could take.

Several minutes passed while Bård sat by his brother's side, trying to will him to rouse. Nurses and doctors and visitors walked across the large open area where the smaller individual rooms led to. He heard the sounds of their passage: footsteps, some quiet talk and one crying fit. Someone had moved on, their spark forever extinguished. Bård tried not to think that his brother could be next.

“Maybe you'll be strong enough tomorrow,” Bård whispered and collected his crutches from the floor. He was already starting to hate the things, and he had been promised at least a month of relying on them for his mobility. It was difficult to remain optimistic about anything.

Bård made his way slowly back to his room. Seeing his mother there, waiting for him with a cautious smile on her face made him irritated. Her worried eyes and defeated posture shouldn't make his skin crawl, but he couldn't quell the swelling of annoyance.

“Hello, sweetie. How are you doing?” she asked congenially.

“Vegard's still out cold,” was Bård's reply. He let the crutches slide to the floor and lied down on his bed. His mother helped him pull the blanket up and Bård had to fight an unexpected urge to slap her well-meaning hands away.

“I got you something. Or do you want to sleep now?”

“Not sleeping.”

“Here,” his mother said and handed over a small rectangular container with rounded corners. Bård recognised the shape and opened the plastic lid to reveal glasses with thin metal rims.

“Your prescription, no more borrowing mine.”

“Thanks,” Bård said without much enthusiasm and slipped the glasses on his nose. The world suddenly shifted back into focus: the ceiling revealed small cracks in its previously uniform surface and his mother's face lines that hadn't been there before. Even colours seemed brighter and more pronounced. Bård looked around the room in wonder for a moment until he settled his eyes back on his mother. Seeing the impact of their ordeal carved in her skin made him lower his gaze to the light blue blanket covering his lap.

“Thank you, really,” Bård amended his earlier shortness.

“You're most welcome, sweetheart.” The smile on her face made the wrinkles around her eyes stand out, but Bård didn't mind. Her warmth was genuine: the dimples dug deep grooves around her mouth.

“Did you eat yet?” she asked and pulled the blanket higher on Bård's chest, meeting no resistance from him.

“Yes, cleared my plate. If you ask me about my bowel movements, I'm kicking you out,” Bård said. His mother understood the genuine warning veiled in the light-hearted tone and backed off.

“Tromsø is a beautiful city. Maybe you'll want to come outside for a bit later? There's a curious metal artwork right outside the hospital.”

“Yeah, maybe. You know what, I think I'll sleep a bit after all.”

“Oh, of course! I'll go see your brother and come back later,” she promised and stood up to go. Bård shut his eyes as she kissed him on the cheek and left. The closing door sounded unreasonably loud. Bård opened his eyes again and looked out through the window. He could make out the individual leaves in the nearest tree, coloured in tones of blindingly bright yellow and warm orange. The sun was peeking through the grey clouds, casting a narrow beam on the floor. He heard the sirens of an ambulance getting steadily closer. Life went on around him but he felt no connection to it.

*****

The pain was bad at nights. Bård had been lulled to sleep by a hefty dose of something that dulled all sensations, but in the small hours of the morning, before the first hint of blue started colouring the sky, he felt the throbbing hurt burn his leg, centring around the injured ankle, making every position uncomfortable. He laid in phlegmatic agony, lacking the willpower to call a nurse for a futile visit. They'd probably just tell him it wasn't time for more drugs yet anyway.

The darkness in the room bothered Bård surprisingly little. The absence of light used to be a circumstance of fear for him, an area of unknown danger. Now it was just dark. The room held no secrets from him: all oppressors were dead. Yet the isolation weighed on him heavily. The sense of dread stealing his sleep was not idle paranoia but rooted in reality through his brother. Bård tried not to imagine how his life would be if solitude was no longer a choice.

Without a conscious decision to do so, Bård sat up and leaned over the edge of the bed to fish his crutches up from the floor. A sudden twinge in his being urged him to get up, telling him he was needed. Bård didn't question the inexplicable sense of urgency. Sleep seemed unlikely so he might as well get up and hope to quiet his churning thoughts by walking a bit. He settled his feet on the floor and sat still for a moment, adjusting to the new position, breathing deep as the pain intensified. The delay did nothing to alleviate the nagging feeling in his gut and he pulled himself upright sooner than he would've wanted. Without really knowing what he was doing, Bård found himself at the door, pushing it open while balancing on one leg, ribs protesting the movement.

His passage down the empty corridor was accompanied by the muffled thump of the rubber-clad ends of his crutches. He went slowly but with determination. The hospital was sleeping, apart from night nurses and doctors and patients who all seemed too engrossed in whatever they were doing to notice the slim young man in blue pyjamas making his way to the elevator at the end of the hall. He rode up three floors, leaning his head against the cool glass of the mirror, leaving a greasy stain on the smooth surface. When he reached the correct floor and the doors swished open, he needed a moment before he managed to get himself moving again.

Bård heard him before he even reached the glass doors. His brother's rich, dark voice, nearly unrecognisably vocalising fear that ran too deep to be suppressed. Everything but the desperate need to get to his brother disappeared in an instant and Bård yanked on the door, only to find it locked. Luckily a young red-headed doctor ran past him and opened the door with her card, not quite inviting the young man in but not pausing to stop him either. Bård followed her and limped in as fast as he could, heading towards Vegard's room. His heart was pounding in his chest, slamming against the walls of his ribcage hard enough to hurt. Blood rushed in his ears, but not loud enough to drown out the hoarse cries emanating from the room just a few short metres in front of him. Bård nearly ran the last steps and grabbed the door handle.

Vegard's eyes were open, flicking frantically around, darting from one end of the room to the other, taking nothing in. The full strength of his powerful voice was behind his screams, shouting wordless denial and calling for his brother. Two nurses held down his flailing limbs while a third white-clad person worked with something cylindrical in her hands.

“Wait!” Bård yelled from the door. The medical personnel turned their heads towards him, but Vegard didn't react to the new sound. He kept thrashing and yelling, nearly overpowering the people trying to restrain him.

“Vegard!” Bård raised his voice and limped the rest of the way to reach his brother's side. He all but collapsed to sit on the bed and threw his crutches on the floor. He captured Vegard's good hand in his, taking over from the nurse who stepped back, slightly out of breath. Vegard returned the squeeze with crushing force, but he didn't turn towards his brother. Bård gently put a trembling hand on Vegard's sweaty forehead and smoothed the moist hair back. Each agonised utterance of his name made a shudder run through him.

“Vegard, I'm here, it's okay now. I'm right here,” Bård said, trying to connect through touch and his voice. Vegard was whimpering and panting audibly, but finally he quieted to listen.

“I'm here, we're okay. We made it. I'm here now,” Bård kept saying, seeing the brown eyes focus on him.

Tears leaked out from the corners of Vegard's eyes, sliding down against the white pillow under his head. Bård wiped the moisture away with his thumb and continued slowly petting the hair with firm movements. His hands shook, but Vegard didn't seem to mind. His gaze was directed at his brother, studying the face with intensity. Their fingers were entwined together, squeezing as if their lives depended on the strength of the grip.

“Bård,” Vegard whispered hoarsely. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but his eyes fluttered shut and his taut form relaxed with a shuddering sigh.

Bård mirrored his brother's exhalation. He unlocked his fingers from Vegard's and released the tension from his shoulders. The motions of his other hand ceased and he brought it up against his chest, rubbing the palm against the thin fabric. One of the nurses had already vacated the room and the remaining one was discussing something with the young doctor who had an unused syringe in her hands.

“Great timing,” the nurse said and smiled kindly at Bård. He could only nod in reply, not trusting his voice to not quiver as much as his hands did.

The doctor stepped closer, her focus on Vegard's left arm. Bård saw that the thick bandages around it were soaked in fresh blood. He quickly turned his gaze to his brother's face to escape the sight. Vegard's forehead glistened with sweat and his reddened cheeks clashed with the prevailing pallor beneath.

Bård cleared his throat and asked: “Will he be okay?” The nurse and the doctor exchanged a look. The nurse smiled again at Bård and put his hand on the young man's shoulder.

“We'll give him a quick check, but he should be fine now. Let's get you in bed and you can come back in the morning.” His voice was low and firm, messaging that he wasn't asking or suggesting but commanding. Bård nodded and stood up, accepting his crutches from the nurse who collected them from the floor. He took a couple of clumsy steps before he needed to stop.

“Are you feeling okay?” The nurse asked. The doctor was bent over Vegard, peeling off the bloodied cloth covering his arm.

“Bit dizzy,” Bård admitted. The nurse put his hand behind Bård's back and guided him out of the room. As soon as the door was closed, Bård felt the last of his strength abandon him. The nurse leaned him against the nearest wall and went to borrow a wheelchair from the corner by the entrance to the ward. Bård stood with the world swinging around him, pulsating in his head and dampening his senses, fighting to keep his composure and not fall apart in such a public area.

Within minutes that flashed by unnervingly swiftly, Bård was seated with the crutches in his lap and whisked half-way back to his own room. The nurse kept up a brisk pace and headed towards the room Bård guided him to. He was of very little help in getting his body up on the bed. The nurse did the heavy lifting and tucked him in like a child.

“Thanks,” Bård muttered as the pull of sleep grew too powerful to resist. He only vaguely heard the nurse close the door as he left with the wheelchair. The last image on Bård's mind before darkness conquered him was of his brother's eyes, terrified and confused.

The weight of the broken promise pressed him into oblivion.

*****

“Did you see Vegard? Was he awake?” Bård asked his mother the second she stepped through the door leading to his room. Bård's leg was resting on a plump white pillow and a thin tube was running from a liquid-filled transparent bag on the IV stand to his hand again. He'd been given a very stern suggestion to rest and not go traipsing through the hospital that day. He had every intention of disregarding said suggestion, but it would have to wait. For that moment, he was content to be lying down and not moving, waiting for the bag to finish emptying its magic into his veins.

“I did, but he was sleeping. Just sleeping,” his mother specified when Bård's expectant face fell into disappointment. “Apparently there was some positive development last night.”

“Yeah, he was awake and lucid, for a moment.”

“Oh, but that is wonderful news!” his mother smiled and clapped her hands together in an eerie imitation of her oldest son. “Maybe you two can come home soon.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“What's wrong?” she asked and took Bård's hand in hers, running her thumb slowly over the knuckles.

“Nothing,” Bård muttered and reclaimed his appendage. He turned his gaze towards the door, feeling his mother's eyes on him.

“It'll be good, you can stay in your old rooms and I'll take care of you. You don't have to worry about anything besides getting better.” She went back to touching Bård's hand, this time caressing it gently with her fingers but not grasping it. Bård allowed the contact and closed his eyes.

“I can take another two weeks off, but after that you'll be alone during the day, but I think that's okay, you can – “

“Mamma?”

“Yes?”

“Do you really think Vegard won't be the same again?” Bård asked, repeating the words he only hazily remembered his mother uttering when he first woke up in the hospital. Panic-stricken brown eyes swam across his vision. The initial lack of recognition in them on the previous night terrified him. What if Vegard would be forever lost in that forest?

“He'll be fine,” she said again, clinging to what brought her hope and comfort. “You're fine, right?”

Bård paused to think about his mother's question, to really taste the words and allow them to sink in. His worry for Vegard had occupied him during the last few days, to the exclusion of everything else. Perhaps his single-mindedness was a defence mechanism, protecting him from going too deep into his memories. Perhaps he zoned out by necessity whenever the professionals explained to him about the state of his own injury. The wealth of information available for him to objectively analyse his condition remained untouched. He saw no reason to deny his mother's hope with futile questions.

“Yeah, I'm alright,” Bård smiled at his mother and seeing the lightening of the lines on her forehead was what made the lie bearable.

“Try sleeping a bit, you look tired,” she said and stood up. “I'll go see your brother and come back here later.”

“Okay,” Bård said softly, mind still turned inwards. “Thank you,” he added just as his mother was opening the door. If she replied, he didn't hear it.

*****

His face appeared serene, frighteningly so. Bård's fingers were tapping a simple rhythm on the worn canvas armrests of the chair next to his brother's bed. Vegard was sleeping and Bård was determined to wait until he woke up, refusing to leave despite the encouragements to go lie down in his own bed by the personnel sporadically popping in and out of the room. Not one of them had told him anything concrete about his brother's situation, and had Bård been in better form, he would've felt furious about receiving such patronising treatment. But for now he was up for no battles and meekly accepted their bland assurances that Vegard would be fine.

“Seems like that's all anyone says anymore. 'He'll be fine, you're fine, all is just fucking fine.' I'm sick of hearing it!”

The tapping of his fingers intensified into a forceful pounding.

“I'm sick of all this. Because yeah, we _should_ be fine. Not stuck here, trapped by these ugly walls.”

“Bård?” The hoarse whisper was nearly drowned under the noise made by Bård's nervous fingers. He turned his head to meet his brother's gaze and ceased his motions. The brown eyes were glassy and half-lidded, peering at the world under drawn brows, but there was sentience behind them.

“Hey, welcome back to the land of the living. You look like shit.”

“Feel like shit,” Vegard admitted, his voice gaining a small amount of strength. “What happened?”

“Want to specify that question?” Bård asked, his tone light and flippant while his heart slammed into painful pounding, making his hands unsteady. “A time definition would be helpful. What happened since last night? What happened since last week? What happened since last winter?”

“Since you left me.”

Shivers ran up Bård's back. His breathing accelerated, each inhalation doing nothing to fill his lungs. Vegard couldn't possibly be aware of his betrayal, he hadn't been conscious when Bård made the decision to go seek help and leave his brother behind. He couldn't know.

“Left you where?” Bård asked with a slight quiver in his voice that he couldn't level.

“On the rock.”

The rush of blood in Bård's ears nearly obscured the answer. He blinked for a moment until his mind grasped the words.

“What rock? Do you mean _by_ the rock, in the forest?”

“No, on the rock, between the two dead trees. You said I was slowing you down and walked away.”

“Vegard, that didn't happen.” Cold fear immersed Bård under its frozen surface. How far had Vegard gone in his mind to believe Bård would be capable of abandoning him? He was scratching at the truth, but he shouldn't be aware of doing so. Brown eyes blinked in confusion and sought Bård's face for any trace of lies.

“What... what then?”

“We came down from that rock together. We walked as far as we could, together. I didn't leave you.”

Vegard accepted the words with a nod. His blinks were getting slower and more frequent until he didn't open his eyes anymore.

“So you didn't say I'm a useless burden and you don't need me?” Vegard mumbled, fading fast.

Bård took a moment to bite his teeth together and to pull a deep inhalation through his nose.

“I always need you,” Bård whispered and leaned his forehead against Vegard's. The skin felt warm under his, and slick with sweat. “You're not a burden.”

“Not a burden...” Vegard repeated and exhaled slowly. When Bård lifted his head off his brother's, he was fast asleep.

“Oh fuck,” Bård sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He had taken a shower that morning and the long strands were still slightly moist. He generally felt a bit better, stronger and more _there_ , and he feared that any moment a nurse would enter his room with his discharge papers in hand.

“I can't leave you again,” Bård whispered. “Not now. Not like this.”

The thought of his brother living in a nightmare version of the events, unable to differentiate between what was real and what was the product of his troubled mind made Bård's insides twist in fear. The broken promise hung over him stronger than ever, casting an impenetrable shade on any joy he felt over having his brother back. His abandonment may have been stronger in Vegard's head than it was in reality, but the transgression remained.

“Here you are!” their mother said, prompting Bård to turn his head towards the door in surprise. She brushed her wet hair off her forehead and smiled.

“Raining?” Bård asked needlessly, constructing a cheeky grin on his face.

“How's sleeping beauty?” she asked in turn, ignoring his baiting.

“A bit fuzzy,” Bård replied, turning his eyes on his brother again. Vegard was resting quietly, green pyjamas accentuating the pallor on his face. His expression showed no signs of whatever was going on in his mind. Bård couldn't help but imagine what kind of torturous scenes were being conjured up behind the closed lids, driving an imaginary wedge of betrayal between them.

“And how are you?” she asked while taking her jacket off, her back turned to him in order to hang it on a peg on the wall. Not seeing her eyes made it easier to tell her what she wanted to hear.

“I'm fine.”

His mother brought a second chair next to his and sat down. She took Bård's right hand in hers and reached for Vegard's on the bed with the other. They sat like that for a while in silence, connected through touch instead of words. A nurse came into the room to check the readings on some of the monitors surrounding Vegard and injected something into his IV line. She greeted the pair in the chairs warmly but made no small talk. Bård was grateful for that. He had no interest in anything but the familiar figure in front of him and so far he had been given only hollow assurances about his state.

“Where are you staying?” Bård suddenly asked. His mother smiled in surprise, pleased to hear her son take interest in the outside world again for the first time.

“They had availability in the patient hotel right next to the hospital, so I have a cosy room there, not too expensive,” she replied and brushed her thumb against the back of Bård's hand.

Bård instinctively tightened his hold, clinging to the familiar safety.

“I guess I'll join you there soon.”

“Are you feeling that much better?” she asked with a smile that made all signs of age and stress dim on her face. Bård found himself returning the expression.

“Maybe,” he only said. His hesitation didn't manage to lessen his mother's apparent joy.

“Come with me to the cafeteria after lunch, I'll buy you a bun,” she said, squeezing his hand with renewed vigour.

Bård couldn't share his mother optimism, but he would welcome the distraction from his morose thoughts.

“I am kinda starving,” he admitted.

“Well it's lunch time, you should go back to your room to eat,” his mother said firmly.

“Will you stay with Vegard?”

“Yes, I'll be here,” she promised and looked at her younger son. “Relax and take a nap after eating.”

“I'm not a baby,” Bård scoffed, a slight flush rising on his pale cheeks.

“You're injured and need to rest,” she said with no hint of joviality in her voice. Bård dropped his protest and nodded.

“I'll be back later,” he said and stood up. His mother handed over his crutches, caressing his hand for one moment as they made contact before letting go. Bård took a couple of steps towards the door before he turned his head to look at his brother again. Vegard hadn't moved. Their mother was smoothing his hair back, all attention on him. Bård left the room without a word.

*****

When Bård was making his way back to the intensive care unit, he felt almost good. His stomach was full, he'd had a decent nap and his leg was only hurting a little. He entered the elevator and reached to press the button that would take him up. The doors were just starting to close when someone yelled at him to wait for her. Bård jammed a crutch between the slowly moving doors, causing them to pause and slide back open. A woman who was probably somewhere in her early thirties ran in and quickly caught her breath before thanking Bård. Her wet blonde hair was plastered against her skull and smudged mascara framed her blue eyes.

“It's pissing down out there,” she said and wiped at her face, smearing the mascara further along her cheeks.

“So I see,” Bård noted. The woman glanced at him and did a double-take, undoubtedly noticing his blue pyjamas and crutches for the first time.

“Oh, I'm sorry I bothered you! I'm not even in a hurry, just impatient,” she said by way of apology.

“No worries, I'm not exactly on my last legs yet,” Bård quipped. The woman was rather attractive under the layer of run-down make-up, with a strong jaw and a delicate nose giving emphasis to the roundness of her face. “Which floor you going to?”

“Ah, the ICU, I think it was six?”

Bård nodded and mentioned that he was heading in the same direction.

“You're not returning from an escape run, are you?” the woman asked, eyes squinted with amusement. “Popping out for a quick smoke in secret?”

“Just visiting my brother,” Bård explained, not pausing to think whether he should offer the information or not. The woman's blue eyes seemed kind and open, somehow pure amongst the faded black.

“I'm here for my cousin. He managed to get himself pretty beat up far from home,” she said.

The elevator reached their intended floor and the doors slid open. Bård made a small bow with his head to indicate that he was letting her exit before him. He didn't want to admit that he needed a moment to get going with the crutches again. The woman smiled and preceded him, hovering near to put a leg between the doors if he took too long.

“I'm Nina by the way,” she said as they started walking along the corridor together.

“Bård,” he grunted, trying to maintain a respectable pace. Nina kept her steps short to accommodate him. She had a robust build, easily standing as tall as him in her black high-heeled boots.

“Nice to meet you, Bård, even if not in the ideal setting,” Nina said and smiled, red lipstick making her mouth look wider than it was.

“Likewise,” Bård managed to say. His arms were tiring quickly, still unused to supporting his weight for longer stretches of time. He was pretty sure a blister was forming on his left palm too, right below the fingers.

They entered through the glass doors at the end of the corridor, unlocked during visiting hours. Nina wished Bård a swift recovery and headed towards the room next to Vegard's. Bård let his eyes linger on her shapely behind, swinging enticingly from side to side in her tight knee-length skirt as she walked briskly. Her beige coat had uneven patterns created by the drying rain water, drawing his attention. She turned around for a final wave and a smile before opening the door and disappearing from view. Bård shook his head and entered the room he both feared and revered.

The situation hadn't changed from when Bård left: Vegard was asleep and their mother was sitting in the chair by his bedside, reading a book. On closer inspection Bård realised that his mother's hands were shaking and that Vegard's cheeks were flushed an unattractive shade of pink.

“What happened?” Bård asked, his earlier good mood deflating in an instant.

“Oh, nothing to worry about,” his mother said, the lie written all over her face.

“I need to know,” Bård said without specifying how profound the need was.

“Vegard woke up a bit and was confused. It's okay now.”

“What did he say?”

“It's not important, just nightmares.”

“What did he say?” Bård wasn't quite shouting, but his mother shushed him anyway.

“He was just wondering where you were. Seemed to think you left him somewhere.”

The truth gripped Bård's heart and squeezed it. He shuffled to the unoccupied chair and sat down clumsily, letting the crutches drop to the floor.

“I did. I really did leave him,” Bård whispered. His mother offered no words in fear of interrupting him, but she gave him a look that was full of love and support, silently urging him to continue. Bård hadn't talked about any of the events, only mentioned that they had been lost in the forest with the man who had tried to kill them before. She knew that Bård had ended up in the couple's garden in Kautokeino alone, but all details were still hidden from her. Bård turned his gaze to Vegard.

“I didn't think he knew. He couldn't keep going then. Not after all he did for me. I had no choice.”

His mother took his hand, squeezing it gently between both her own. Bård felt trapped within the warm cage, but he resisted the impulse to pull his hand free.

“You saved him. If you had stayed there, you both would've died long before anyone could find you.”

“You don't know that,” Bård snapped.

“Listen, it was only a nightmare. Once Vegard is feeling better, you can tell him what happened and he'll understand.”

Bård didn't reply. He kept his eyes on his brother's slim form. The chest rose and fell regularly, an indisputable guarantee of life. It should've been enough for him.

“I don't know,” Bård finally said, ending the conversation. His mother released his hand and returned to her book. Bård waited for a moment to ensure that she was engrossed in the activity before he slipped his hand into Vegard's. The skin felt rough, flaking a bit near the joints. Evidently no one had thought to apply lotion on his dry palms. Another sign that his brother wasn't in control of his body.

“I have to get out of here,” Bård muttered, not fully voicing his growing sense of unease. He placed his brother's limp hand back on the bed and tucked it inside the blanket. “I have to get out.”

“Shall we go to the cafeteria now?” his mother asked, placing a worn leather bookmark made by her sons between the pages.

“No, I need air,” Bård said and started the process of standing up. He dropped one crutch in his haste and nearly toppled over. He took support from Vegard's bed, making the mattress dip slightly. He felt his mother's fingers around his arm, holding him up.

“Easy. We'll go outside. Just slow down,” his mother assured him and retrieved the fallen crutch. Shame rose in Bård, nearly succeeding in pushing the walls back further away where they belonged. The air was still too thick for him, filling his mouth with a viscosity that he couldn't force into his lungs. They made it half-way across the room before Bård suddenly stopped and looked back over his shoulder. Blue eyes met brown.

“Vegard?” Bård asked, his pulse accelerating. Judging by the green line on one monitor, so did Vegard's.

“You okay?” Vegard asked and scrunched his eyebrows. Bård returned to the bedside.

“I'm just fine,” Bård said, unable to hide how out of breath he was.

“Don't look fine,” Vegard mumbled. Apparently being heavily sedated and too tired to lift a finger did nothing to prevent him from sensing when his younger brother was distressed.

“How about you?” Bård deflected the questioning with none of his usual subtlety. Vegard seemed to accept the evasion and dropped the subject.

“Tired,” he sighed in reply.

“Pain?” Bård asked.

Vegard nodded but didn't elaborate. He closed his eyes again. Bård waited to see if he would say anything else, unconsciously matching his breathing with his brother's slower pace. After a short moment of silence, Vegard entered the steady deep rhythm of sleep. Bård brushed a stray strand of hair out of his eyes and pulled himself upright.

“So, you promised me a bun?” Bård asked and started making his way back towards the door. His mother followed, giving him space but keeping close enough to react if he needed support. Bård found his grip on the crutches steady, his head clear and his steps unfaltering.

They entered the elevator outside the unit and pressed the second floor's worn button to reach the small cafeteria. The mood was quiet but not sullen as they rode down. They didn't pass many people on their way to the other end of the hospital, much to Bård's relief. He found himself wary of large crowds, and not on account of the crutches and manoeuvrability. Luckily lunch hour was over, leaving plenty of tables unoccupied.

Bård sat down in a narrow metal chair and let his mother retrieve refreshments and pastries for them. He looked around the open space, framed by walls with signs on either side. He tried not to read the ominous words pointing to sections of the hospital he didn't want to visit. The few large green plants scattered around the room failed to improve on the general oppressive atmosphere. One couple was seated at the other end of the cafeteria, holding hands above a small round table. The young woman had the look of someone who had given up, with greasy hair hanging limp above her turtle-neck sweater. The bald man was wrapped in a dark brown robe, with clear eyes and a missing arm. Bård had to turn his gaze away.

“They were out of regular cola so I brought you a diet one, is that okay?” his mother's voice snapped Bård back to attention.

“Yeah, that's fine,” he said, accepting the light grey tray holding a tall glass of dark liquid and a sugar and coconut shavings -covered bun with an eye of creamy yellow custard and a couple of napkins. His mother bit into her pastry and stirred her ceramic mug of steaming coffee.

“I got a text message from your father, asking if you'd feel up for calling him later today,” she said after swallowing.

“Sure,” Bård said, staring at the skolebolle on his tray. Its plump side looked appetising but he hesitated before picking the delicacy up. Vegard loved these things and would happily devour three in a row if not stopped. It felt somehow wrong to eat one without him.

Bård shook his head and decided he was being stupid. Vegard was getting better and he was well looked after. It would in no way be detrimental to him if Bård treated himself to one bun with their mother. The irrational unease remained, but he tentatively lifted the pastry up and took a bite. Soon the sweet taste and the rich texture filled his mouth and he couldn't stop himself from taking another bite. He drank some cola to wash it down and continued eating with an almost frantic pace, as if he hadn't just been fed less than an hour ago.

The boys' mother observed her son eating without comment. She started telling him more about the patient hotel and the city around them. Bård was content to just listen to her describe her flight up north and how she first heard about what had happened. Her voice trembled when she recalled receiving the message from the hospital. Bård couldn't meet her eyes.

The cafeteria was gradually filling with a new batch of visitors. At first Bård paid no heed to it, but as the room started getting crowded with people in dark jackets and hospital clothes, he felt an increasing amount of eyes on him. He told himself he was being paranoid, there was nothing dangerous around him, just ordinary people trying to get through a visit in the hospital, but when the whispered syllables of his own name reached his ears, he immediately turned his head towards the sound. Two women were talking with each other, glancing in his direction and pointing fingers. When they noticed Bård looking back at them, they swiftly turned their attention to the white mugs in front of them on their shared table.

“We should go,” Bård said under his breath. His mother followed his line of sight but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“Now!” Bård whispered with urgency. He grabbed his crutches from the chair they had been leaning against and stood up, hitting the table with his knees. The small rickety table wobbled and the empty glass on it fell over with a thud. Bård shrank into himself and dropped his gaze on the floor, fearing he would see nothing but a sea of faces staring at him if he were to lift his head. His mother's hand against his back was warm and solid.

“Sorry,” Bård mumbled and started making his way towards the nearest exit. His mother went to take their empty trays to the stand in the corner of the cafeteria. Bård didn't linger to wait for her but entered the elevator as soon as the doors slid open. The impenetrable metal hid the faces from his view and he released a long exhalation of relief, leaning his head back against the mirror.

When Bård entered the lobby, he saw the invitingly open doors of the main entrance. He set his course straight for them and pushed his aching body into reaching them faster. He was panting slightly by the time he stepped through and into sunshine for the first time in several days.

The ground was still wet from the earlier rain, but all dark clouds had dispersed and the open blue sky greeted him. Bård took a few steps along the pavement and reached a grassy area by the side. Not pausing to consider that the slippery vegetation could be difficult to walk on, he stepped on the green and closed his eyes. Wind ruffled his hair and he heard a seagull's echoing cry. No walls trapped him. He was safe in a cradle of grass, surrounded by the urban landscape. The forest couldn't reach him here: he was protected by bricks and asphalt. He could breathe free.

“On the run again?” Nina's familiar voice came from behind Bård. He opened his eyes and saw her grinning face.

“No, just...” Bård let his words fade. He had nothing to offer. _Just freaking out. That's what I do. I'm a pathetic wreck of a person who can't keep it together for one single day._

“Enjoying the sunshine?” Nina suggested. Her hair had dried into slight waves and she had peeled the beige coat off her shoulders, revealing a tight white blouse beneath.

“Yeah. Someone told me it was raining, what a filthy liar,” Bård tossed back. He heard Nina snort.

“You know what they say about the weather up here.”

“No, what do they say?” Bård asked, full focus on her blue eyes.

“That it's a bitch,” Nina said and they both laughed. She dug out a cigarette from her coat's pocket and a lighter from another one. Bård noted that she didn't carry a purse with her.

“So how's your brother doing?” she asked after lighting up and blowing the first wisps of smoke out.

“He's in pretty bad shape. Doesn't seem to be fully _here_ , you know?”

“Yeah, my cousin's raving about wet graves and red cars whenever he's not knocked out by the shit they pump into him,” Nina said and continued to drag air in through the cigarette.

“You're from Oslo?” Bård asked, trying to place her dialect.

“Told you we were far from home,” Nina said by way of confirming the young man's assumption. “And do I hear some Bergen in you?”

Bård nodded but didn't specify further. Nina blew more smoke out.

“Is that your mother?” she asked and nodded her head in the direction of the main entrance. Bård followed the indication and saw his mother standing there, clutching her worn purse and looking at the opposite direction.

“Yeah,” Bård affirmed.

“Can't be easy for her, having two kids in the hospital,” Nina noted. She finished her cigarette and let it drop to the ground. A black boot covered the small cylinder and flattened it. “Give her a break, yeah?”

Bård felt like protesting and pointing out that he was a fully grown man, but Nina had already turned to go. She tossed an 'adios' over her shoulder and stepped back onto the pavement. Bård followed her retreating form until she turned a corner and disappeared from view.

“You met Nina?” his mother asked when Bård reached her by the doors.

“You know her?”

“We've talked at the ICU. Her cousin was in a hiking accident. Lovely young woman.”

“There's something strangely familiar about her,” Bård noted. He was leaning heavily on the crutches, eyes directed towards the sky. A bird flew over them, making Bård realise that he had left his new glasses on the bedside table when he couldn't see the dark shape well enough to identify the species. A sudden gust of the rising wind made Bård shiver in his thin pyjamas.

“Let's go back inside,” his mother suggested and he saw no reason to object. With a final glance at the cloudless sky, Bård turned to go inside. Had he lowered his gaze to the street in front of the hospital, he might have caught the blue eyes observing him.


	4. Chapter 4

Bård carried no luggage when he stepped into his hotel room. His mother had bought him some new clothes to wear, but most of them were stashed in the room already. She had shown up that morning holding out fresh blue jeans and a red shirt for him, presenting them with a hopeful smile. Bård had put on the ill-fitting garments without a word. The hospital had given the tattered remains of the brothers' clothes to their mother for cleaning, but she had only managed to salvage the once-white hoodie, and even that was only at Bård's insistence. Everything else had been so full of tears and holes that it was easier to just throw them away. Their shoes had been in surprisingly good condition, only needing a thorough scrubbing to get rid of the moss and the dirt they had carried out from the forest. The musty smell of swamp water still clung to them, but persistent use would eventually wear it out, dissolving the last tangible memory of their misadventure.

Bård stood in the middle of the room, leaning on his crutches and looking around. It was a small and functional space with no thresholds to guarantee accessibility. One sliding door separated the bathroom from the main room and another hid a closet in the corner where the visitors could store their clothes. Bård pulled the greyed hoodie tighter around himself as he surveyed his new surroundings. The worn garment smelled like a summery meadow, but with a faint undercurrent of marshy water. He kept it on despite the warmth in the room.

Three steps took Bård to the bed that was occupying most of the floor area in the room. Opposite it was a delicate wooden desk leaning against a wall with a tiny fridge under it, thrumming softly in the silence. A flat screen protruding from the wall added its nearly imperceptible electric hum to the background noise. Someone had tried to improve the room's atmosphere by hanging purple curtains on the windows and a painting of a sea view on the white wall, but the efforts at interior decoration couldn't mask the solemn purpose of the place. Whoever came here was either ill or injured or visiting someone who couldn't leave the hospital. Bård snorted as he realised he fit both categories.

He had left the hospital soon after eating breakfast, his discharge papers prepared for him at the crack of dawn. The sun had been shining as he exited the building, but a brutal chilling wind drove straight through his polyester top. Luckily he only needed to cross the yard to reach the patient hotel. His mother had walked with him, but left him to settle in by himself. Bård didn't have much to unpack. He removed his shoe – a precarious operation when there was no convenient chair near the door – and sat down on the bed. He dug out a small plastic bag from his pocket which held a toothbrush, toothpaste and lipbalm and set it on the bed. Those could be taken to the bathroom later: with his compromised mobility, each step mattered.

Settling in thus officially completed, Bård was left with nothing to do. He lifted his legs on the bed and lied down, directing his gaze upwards. Might as well get accustomed to the new ceiling, he expected to be facing several hours of staring at it. The building was only a couple of years old, not showing signs of the endless wind from the sea wearing it down yet. The noise of traffic and the perpetual crashing of the restless waves were unusually quiet behind the double-glass window. Bård was grateful for the silence. His mother was on the other side of the wall, but when the lights went down and the sounds of life ceased around him, he would be confined within the sturdy enclosure alone.

Vegard was having another surgery on his arm that morning. Bård closed his eyes and tried not to think about it. He couldn't believe the doctors considered his brother fit enough to be put through the ordeal, but evidently they deemed it necessary. Their mother read through each pamphlet and brochure they gave her with religious zeal, but Bård preferred not to know. Percentages became terrifying when they were linked to real life. Sometimes being in the dark made it easier to cling to hope.

Bård rolled over to his right side, found the position too painful for his leg, and returned to lying on his back. Without that stinging agony, he could've been relaxing at a normal hotel, perhaps on tour with his brother, performing in another stage show somewhere along their long and narrow land. The memories of stepping into the spotlight from behind the curtains made Bård quickly turn his thoughts away. All those eyes on him, whispering, wondering, waiting for him to fall. Why had he never before seen them for what they truly were?

The hospital had been a safe cocoon for Bård, and as he lied on the firm hotel bed in sudden silence, he started to realise he'd been cast out of a sanctuary. The time to join the real world again had come, but he wasn't sure if he was ready for it. At least no one in Tromsø knew him. He could move around undisturbed, without questioning eyes on him expecting him to be a blubbering mess. Their story had been published in trashy newspapers, but Bård didn't think anyone could recognise him so far removed from the show business setting. They weren't exactly big celebrities, although they did sometimes get stopped in the streets for a chat with fans. But it was a rare occurrence, usually limited to larger cities. Bård clung to the protection of anonymity.

The muted siren of an ambulance accompanied Bård as he closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. He had promised to have lunch with his mother in the hospital's cafeteria. After that Vegard's operation should be over and he'd be waking up. Bård almost feared seeing him again. What little strength his brother had managed to accumulate over the last couple of days would be gone. The nightmare was never-ending, pushing them constantly back to where they had started, not allowing them even the smallest steps of progress. That Bård had been released from the hospital mattered little. As long as Vegard was there, he couldn't move on either.

A sedate knocking on the door pulled Bård out of his thoughts. An hour had slipped by in a half-doze and it was time to eat. His body was eager for sustenance, but Bård felt no enthusiasm. He sat up and collected his crutches from the floor. He was starting to detest the cumbersome things and how heavily reliant he was on them. The knocking repeated and Bård found himself yelling that he was coming, perhaps a bit louder than the wooden door accounted for. Standing up and taking the few required steps made his ankle throb with the familiar rhythm. Bård limped to the door and prepared himself to have lunch with his mother, out in the open with nothing to shelter him.

*****

Nina and Bård kept running into each other: entering the elevator at the same time, passing each other on their way in and out of the cafeteria, exiting the private rooms at the intensive care unit where their respective relatives still languished. They discussed surface topics only, avoiding questions that were too intimate, ensuring that their acquaintance remained limited to their shared experiences. They never asked about any details of what went on inside the private rooms and never peeked inside when the doors were opened. Sometimes Nina would come out looking morose and Bård would ask her if she was okay, and sometimes Nina would hear Bård's brother yelling when he lost grip on reality and she would give Bård a hug, but they didn't allow the concern to go deeper.

Bård had been in a good mood that morning. His leg wasn't hurting too badly for once, he had eaten an unusually hearty breakfast, and Nina had told him an amusing story about her wild days at the University. She hadn't volunteered any information pertaining to what she had studied and where, and Bård hadn't asked. He had laughed and wished her a good day and entered Vegard's room with a light step, deftly hopping along with the aid of his crutches. One look at his brother's joyless visage had instantaneously quelled his exuberance and their interactions had become forced and awkward.

“How about a banana then?” Bård suggested and tried not to sigh audibly. He kept telling himself that Vegard wasn't being difficult on purpose, but continuing to ignore his prickly attitude was starting to wear him down.

“Just go away and leave me alone!” Vegard snapped and turned his head towards the wall, away from his brother. His forehead was glistening with sweat and his breath came in rapid inhalations. Bård doubted he had slept at all that night.

“If you really want me to, I will go away,” Bård said calmly. Vegard kept staring mutely at the wall. Bård leaned in closer and touched his brother's uninjured forearm, causing him to flinch.

“Sorry,” Bård said. “I'll go.” He got up and took three steps towards the door, then stopped to adjust his grip on the crutches.

“Don't go,” Vegard whispered behind him. Bård remained stationary for a moment before returning to stand by the bed, looking down on his brother. Vegard lifted his eyes to meet Bård's. Tears were shining in them.

“I'm sorry,” Vegard said and hid his face behind his right hand. The IV tube poking out of its back functioned as a visual reminder of how fragile he still was. Feeling a lump in his own throat, Bård watched his brother's shoulders hitch with barely controlled sobs. Cautiously, he put his hand on Vegard's right upper arm, encircling it gently, not wanting to restrict. Encouraged by the touch, Vegard sat up and wrapped his arm around Bård's back, pressing his face against his brother's chest. Bård was motionless for only two seconds before he embraced his brother properly and held him against his body as tight as he dared. His crutches fell to the floor from the side of the bed with a loud clatter. Vegard flinched in his grip at the sound, prompting Bård to lift his left hand to cup the back of his brother's head and hold on, fingers sinking deep into the slightly greasy curls.

After a long moment of clinging to each other and allowing his brother to let out pent-up frustration and fear, Bård loosened his grip. Vegard leaned back slowly to lie down again, wiping his eyes with his good hand. Bård discreetly checked the wires and tubes that were connected to his brother's person to make sure nothing had come loose. The broken arm was ensconced in a white cast and no splotches of fresh blood marred its pristine surface. Bård figured the wounds must be closed already, but still he kept expecting another trail of crimson dripping down the slender fingers. The image of his brother's life force draining onto the cold grey rock in the wilderness refused to fade.

“Sorry,” Vegard said hoarsely. His wet cheeks shone pink and he looked worn out, with darker areas of skin shadowing his glossy eyes. Bård handed him a tissue from the table and bent down to retrieve his crutches, averting his eyes while his brother wiped away the evidence of his emotions.

“Tired?” Bård asked, nodding meaningfully towards the door. Sometimes Vegard was very overt about when he wanted his brother to give him privacy, and sometimes he gave no hints at all until snapping at everyone to leave him alone.

“Yeah, but...” Vegard left his sentence hanging. His gaze was directed at the ceiling, avoiding his brother's expectant face.

Bård understood the unspoken plea, for he shared the need to not be alone just yet. He sat down in the padded chair by the bed and got as comfortable as he could. Stretching his leg and slouching low on the seat to keep his ankle straight helped take the pressure off it, dimming the ever-present throbbing into an insignificant hum. Lifting the leg on a footstool would've been ideal, but there was nothing suitable in the sparsely furnished room. Bård hadn't heard anything about when they would move his brother to a regular ward, but he figured his stay in the intensive care unit might be nearing its end.

Vegard seemed to be doing better compared to the days after he first woke up. He stayed awake for longer stretches of time and didn't appear to be in constant pain anymore. He hadn't shown any interest in food, but at least he took in liquids and kept them down. Bård felt almost paranoid about observing his brother, feeling like he needed to be aware of everything at all times. And yet he opted out of knowing the most significant things: he didn't talk to the doctors about his brother's condition and he didn't read any of the written statements their mother hoarded.

Bård crossed his arms on his chest and looked to the ceiling. It had rectangular white panels with tiny holes in them. He had once counted all the holes in one panel while waiting for his brother to wake up. A lingering glance told Bård that Vegard still clung to awareness, but only barely. His eyes were closed and he appeared slack, but his breathing was still too shallow and controlled. Bård would wait until he was sure Vegard was asleep before leaving, and even then he might stay for a moment longer. Watching his brother's chest rise and fall in regular rhythm was oddly soothing.

Their mother had depleted all the vacation she had accumulated so far that year and a little bit more. Even then, she had returned home only at Bård's insistence that he would be fine on his own – and capable of looking after Vegard. Bård felt guilty for being half of the reason she had wasted all her hard earned holiday sitting around in a hospital, but he couldn't imagine having gone through the first days without her. The unyielding solidity of his mother's presence had helped him recover his centre and to start reaching for the future again. Her absence shook the delicate foundation. Bård would be shouldering the responsibility for them both on arms that could barely hold himself upright.

“I can't do this,” Bård whispered to his brother's still form. Vegard had slipped fully into sleep, allowing Bård to vocalise the trepidation that ate at his insides, knowing there would be no repercussions. “I just can't,” he said and got up. He didn't look back as he made his way to the elevator.

The metal doors slid open to reveal a woman and a young boy. They both had tears in their eyes and they clung to each other with desperation that could only follow a personal tragedy. Bård wanted to back off to wait for the next lift, but he stepped in after only a second of hesitation, not wanting to draw attention to himself with unusual behaviour. The incessant sniffling from the other side of the elevator penetrated into his mind as Bård huddled in on himself. He wanted to hide. The two strangers were almost too much. They were too close: to him, to each other, to the space around Bård. He watched the red numbers slowly count down until the doors opened and he bolted out as fast he could on the loudly thumping crutches.

Once Bård made it outside, his uneasiness only intensified. The wind was rustling the yellowing leaves of a nearby birch tree and two birds screamed at each other. Bård was caught in an avalanche of images: the slowly and inevitably setting sun, the dead pines that knew no mercy, the trickling stream that was their salvation. He blinked moisture off his eyes and felt his mouth twist. The distance across the yard to reach the patient hotel seemed longer than it had that morning. Bård paused to wipe his running nose on the back of his hand and continued limping forwards, vision distorted by tears. The room at the hotel shone in his mind: the one place of safety and privacy he had in the unfamiliar city, where he could be alone and fall apart, where responsibility couldn't touch him.

Where shame couldn't find him.

Bård nearly dropped his key-card as he fumbled with the door. Finally the tiny circular red light turned green and he pressed on the handle to rush in. He managed to close the door securely behind him before he sunk to the floor and let go of all restraints. Seated on the grey plastic carpet, he released the tears, howling his inner turmoil to the barren walls. He could barely breathe for the sobs erupting violently out, rocking his entire body. He was lost in the onslaught, a small insignificant vessel drowned by enormous waves.

After the storm passed, Bård was numb. He wiped his eyes, crawled to the bed and climbed on it, curling into as small a ball as his leg allowed. The sun had dipped below the horizon and taken the light in the room with it; hours had passed. Bård hadn't eaten, but that was okay, hunger helped him think more clearly. He felt as if the pushing out of the emotions had crystallised his thoughts. He understood where he stood.

It all came down to love. _You can't be like this. You will get up, wash your face, go eat something and pull yourself together. Enough wallowing in weakness. Because if you can't hold yourself together, who will hold Vegard together? You love him too much to let him fall._ And that was the simple truth: he cared too much to escape. The shackles of responsibility were made by him and could be broken by him, but he refused to do it.

Bård felt better after having given concrete words to the formless emotions whirling in his head. His decision was clear, but still he delayed. Getting up required more willpower than he could in that moment muster. He allowed his eyes to close and took a couple of deep breaths. Sliding into sleep happened without his awareness. He was dead to the world for hours, hiding in easy oblivion. The phone in his room woke him up some time later but he ignored it. He got up to visit the bathroom and to drink some water straight from the tap before crawling back under the covers. Only the stars witnessed the fresh tears drying on his cheeks.

*****

The morning found Bård ravenously hungry but clear-headed. He covered his pink cast with a plastic bag which he fastened with duct tape like a nurse had advised him, and hobbled into the shower. He lingered longer than was decent, unable to turn off the warm water embracing him. Only when he realised that his fingertips were starting to prune did he kill the flow and dry himself with the crisp white towel provided by the hotel. His clothing options were limited to the sweat-pants he had worn for nearly a week and his last clean shirt, a simple blue long-sleeved tee with a white number nine on its front. Bård suspected it might be from the children's department. He made a mental note to find the laundry room later that day. But first he would eat breakfast and then visit his brother.

Rain was coming down in uneven bursts when Bård exited the hotel. An umbrella would've been useless with the gusty coastal wind driving the drops sideways, drenching him during the short walk to the hospital. Bård wiped the water off his face in the lobby and headed for the elevators. His finger automatically pushed the button for the sixth floor before he remembered that he had intended to swing by the cafeteria first. He shrugged and decided to visit his brother briefly before having breakfast after all. Vegard tended to be a bit groggy in the mornings if they'd given him something to help him sleep during the night, so seeing his brother's face would help him reorient himself to reality.

Bård considered his positive mood as he opened the much too familiar glass door at the end of the hallway. Maybe the uninterrupted rest had done him good. Maybe he ought to learn something from the experience. Pushing his thoughts aside, he opened the door to his brother's room, and froze.

The bed was empty and neatly made.

All the wires and tubes were collected away and the machines were dark.

Vegard was gone.

The moment of realisation came instantly. Bård's heart started hammering crazily in his chest and the corners of the room disappeared. It was first a whisper, the simple word of negation. It grew in duration and in volume until Bård was screaming it, over and over again. Warm hands appeared out of nowhere and grabbed him, pressing him against something solid that had a faint fragrance of flowers. Bård clung to the form, not ceasing his vocal despair despite the firm insistence that he calm down and listen. Bård recognised Nina's voice but he was beyond caring.

Vegard was gone and nothing mattered anymore.

“Bård! For fuck's sake, just listen!” a strong feminine voice commanded, holding onto the young man who was falling apart in her grip. “He's okay! Your brother is fine, he's okay!”

Eventually the words penetrated the thick haze in Bård's mind. He grasped the affirming utterances and clung to them.

“He's okay? But it's empty,” he said through the tears and indicated the vacant room.

“They moved him to the regular ward this morning. He's not dead, he's getting better,” Nina said, exerting her strength to keep Bård upright.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I saw it myself, he was awake when they rolled him through the door. He's okay.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Bård sighed and buried his face against Nina's shoulder, only distantly aware of the female chest pressing against his. She patted his back awkwardly, still supporting most of his weight.

“Now if you don't mind, your skinny ass isn't as light as you think,” Nina gently reprimanded.

Bård realised his crutches were somewhere on the floor and nearly lost his balance. Nina held his arms until he was steady, then bent down to retrieve the metal objects for him. She offered him a generous view of her bosom while doing so and Bård hastily averted his eyes. He gave her his thanks with flushed cheeks as she handed him the crutches. Nina smiled knowingly and turned to go.

“Wait,” Bård said before she could step through the door. Nina turned around, a question reflected in her raised brows. “Do you know where they took him?”

Something flashed on her face, a quick change of expression that Bård couldn't catch. She shook her head in reply and said she saw the transfer from the other side of the room, not within hearing distance. Bård wished her a good day and watched her disappear into her cousin's room.

Bård returned to the hallway with his head swirling in confusion, nervousness and all-permeating relief that nearly stole the strength from his limbs. With shaking arms, he made his way to the nearest information desk. A short dark-haired woman with small brown eyes found the information for Bård while he waited, half-expecting her to tell him he should look for his brother at the morgue after all. His relief at being guided two floors down to the regular ward was immense. Bård thanked the woman and made his way back to the elevators.

The corridor Bård followed was populated by unusually many people. A quick recounting of days in his head told him it was Saturday. Visitors wandered the halls with flowers in their hands and broken expressions on their faces. Some patients also shuffled around in the uniform blue robes the hospital provided for them. People gave Bård ample space as he passed them, for which he was grateful. He deftly navigated the hallway and reached the door with the correct number on it.

Vegard was asleep when Bård slipped into the room. There were two other beds in the small space, both of them occupied. Bård tried not to look at them too closely, not wanting to initiate any exchange with the other patients. He located his brother in the farthest bed, the only one near a window, and made his way to it. A chair had been placed between the window and the bed and Bård sank into it gratefully, sighing in relief as he stretched out his leg.

The chest rising and falling in front of him finally dissolved the underlying fear that had been plaguing Bård ever since his visit to the intensive care unit. Vegard might be wan and worn, but he was definitely alive. His hands had been tucked under the blanket, so Bård didn't reach in to grasp one, distracting himself by looking around the room instead. As he allowed his eyes to roam across the far wall, he noticed the nearest neighbour stealing glances at him. Bård caught the man's eyes once, causing him to startle visibly.

“Are you the Herligste brothers?” the man – semi-bald, somewhere in his early fifties – asked without hesitation after he established eye contact. Bård couldn't see any obvious injuries on him, but there was an IV line running into his left arm.

“Could you give us some privacy, please?” Bård asked and stood up. He had belatedly noticed the curtain that could be pulled between the beds to shield them from curious eyes. He gave the man what he hoped was an apologetic smile and grabbed the edge of the curtain. The white and blue striped plastic hid the intruding man from view, isolating the brothers into their own corner. Bård returned to his spot next to the bed, only to meet half-lidded brown eyes looking around in confusion.

“Whassut where?” Vegard mumbled. Bård could immediately tell he'd been properly dosed for some reason and wasn't fully in the real world yet.

“It's okay, just sleep,” Bård suggested. Vegard obeyed by closing his eyes and promptly drifting off again.

Bård frowned. He knew they were giving Vegard antibiotics and painkillers, but he'd thought he was off the really heavy-duty ones already. Perhaps he'd gotten lost again and reacted violently. Bård hated thinking that it might have happened while he was lying around uselessly, feeling sorry for himself, leaving no one there to give enough of a crap about his brother to calm him down without narcotics.

“Sorry,” Bård said before realising that they no longer had the luxury of a private room. He fell silent and brushed his long hair behind his ears. He had to remind himself that the move was a good thing, it meant Vegard was improving. But the lack of monitoring equipment around his brother had the opposite effect on Bård: he felt insecure, unguarded, abandoned.

A prickling sensation in Bård's stomach reminded him about the breakfast he had postponed. He squinted at the round black clock on the room's white wall. There was plenty of time to make his way down and get some nourishment before lunch hour started. The meals were what gave rhythm to Bård's days: he didn't have to do anything or go anywhere, there were no schedules to follow. The freedom was more a restriction than a blessing. He was drifting without direction, spending his time watching his brother sleep or lying on his hotel bed in the dark. The idleness did nothing to ease the feeling of general uselessness he had. He'd lost control of his life and had no way of picking up the threads again. The thought terrified him less than he'd expect.

“Right, I'm off for breakfast,” Bård said and gave Vegard's right hand a pat through the duvet. On his way out of the room he kept his eyes directed down, but he could still feel the indignant gaze of the neighbouring bed's man boring into him. Bård swallowed all sarcastic comments he wanted to throw in his face and kept walking, not slowing down until he reached the elevators. The cafeteria was bustling with activity when he entered it and he had to force his way to the counter to purchase a sandwich and some juice with his mother's credit card. Only one table was unoccupied and Bård shamelessly swooped in front of a middle-aged couple to claim it. If they protested, he couldn't hear it.

Breakfast was swift and joyless. Bård ate mechanically, wrapped around himself, not observing the families and friends and acquaintances around him, all chatting and snacking loudly. He felt their eyes on him and more than ever he wished his brother was there with him, to share the weight of the gazes and to distract him with his powerful presence. But that option had been taken from Bård. He regretted not peeking down from the rock to see what had become of their tormentor. His mind readily conjured various images of the man skewered on the sharp edges, smashed to pieces on the unforgiving surface, but he didn't know for sure. He had no real visual, nothing tangible to grasp. Anders was dead, but Bård's mind would not let go of the evil the man had tainted them with. He needed his brother. Only Vegard would understand the overflowing relief and crushing horror that still lingered.

Bård took his cleared tray away and headed back to his brother. He considered buying a new book from the small shop by the cafeteria, but he had forgotten his glasses in the hotel and had no desire to cross the distance just to retrieve them. Resigned to impending boredom, he entered the room again.

Vegard was awake this time. Bård found him sitting up against the raised upper half of the bed, appearing lucid and calm, but tired. The left arm was resting on his lap, accentuating how flat his stomach had gotten.

“Morning,” Bård said to draw his attention. Vegard turned his gaze from the window to his brother. His smile nearly knocked the feet from under Bård.

“Hi,” Vegard said and waited for Bård to settle himself on the chair. “What day is it?”

“Saturday,” Bård said, feeling a grin pull at his lips.

“What month?” Vegard asked and yawned.

“Does it really matter?”

“Guess not. You okay?”

“I'm fine,” Bård replied automatically, not pausing to consider the question.

“Is Mamma still here?” Vegard asked.

“Nah, she went home a couple of days ago.”

“You're alone?”

“You're here,” Bård pointed out.

“Barely counts,” Vegard huffed. Bård waited for an explanation. “All I do is sleep. I just woke up and I'm already so tired I'd fall over if I wasn't lying down. It's ridiculous!”

“Give it some time,” Bård tossed at him. Vegard twisted his face into what could've been an impressive glare but became a wide yawn.

“So what's Tromsø like?” Vegard asked, forcing his eyes to stay open.

“Haven't seen much of it,” Bård admitted. Vegard grunted something unintelligible and leaned his head against the pillow.

“You should go explore,” the older brother mumbled after a moment. “Stillness... for you.”

“What?” Bård waited for clarification but Vegard had drifted off again. He slouched lower in the chair and tried to relax.

Bård didn't consider himself lonely. His interest in the city was limited at best and he felt no need to wander the streets without purpose. But after his brother had put the idea in his head, it grew there. Curiosity was a powerful force and the seed had been planted. For the first time in a while, Bård felt up for a challenge.

*****

“How's the cake?” Nina asked and pointed at the multicoloured pile on Bård's plate with her fork.

“It's not bad for cake,” Bård replied and lifted another mouthful past his lips. He wasn't overly fond of sweet pastries in general, but the coconut-plum-whipped cream creation he was demolishing at Aune's Bakery tickled his taste buds in a good way.

The shop was small: only three dainty tables occupied the space between the door and the white counter that was laden with purple baskets full of different kinds of breads, cakes, muffins and cookies. A heavyset middle-aged woman stood behind the wooden barricade, constantly doing something small like rearranging the army of rye rolls in their container or fiddling with the cash register. She had greeted the couple warmly when they entered and bought their slices of cake, introducing herself as Selma Aune, the proud owner of the establishment.

“I'm glad I ran into you,” Nina said and took a sip of her coffee, held in a white porcelain cup with pink flowers on its side. She looked at Bård and smiled, partially hiding her mouth behind the cup. “Always up for free cake.”

“I decided it was time to go exploring. See the town, live a little.”

“Mm yes. You made it half a block from the hospital.”

“I consider that a success,” Bård grinned and drank from his mug of hot chocolate. They were the only customers in the shop braving the rainy day.

“I take it you're feeling better?” Nina asked. She focused her blue eyes on Bård's, capturing the younger man's gaze.

“Yeah,” Bård said quietly and dropped his eyes to the plate. He poked at the remaining pieces of cake with his fork. “I guess so. I only _almost_ panicked at the idea of going out, that's definitely another success, right?” His short bark of laughter was bitter, more a mockery than an expression of amusement.

“You two weren't in a hiking accident, were you?” Nina asked. She put her cup down and placed her hands on the table, coming to rest near Bård's plate.

“What did our mother tell you?” Bård countered.

“Just that you had an accident. But that's bullshit, isn't it? I've heard your brother scream through the walls, no vague nightmares or half-solid delusions can do that to someone, only memories have that kind of power.”

Bård huffed and put his fork down. His fingers were close to Nina's, almost brushing against the back of her hand. He would only need to move his wrist an inch to come into contact with her, but he hesitated. The urge to touch her wasn't ignited because he hadn't felt the heat of a female body in a long while: it was more about her being there and listening, giving him her undivided attention and appearing to care.

“Something... bad happened to us. A ghost from the past returned and... hurt us. It's... it's stupid really,” Bård managed to brokenly explain. His breathing was picking up pace, audibly shuddering with each beat of his erratic heart. He turned towards the window on his right, scanning the grey sky with his eyes. He blinked and tried to push the burning in his throat down.

“It's okay,” Nina said and captured Bård's hand in hers. The fingers were warm and they squeezed with reassuring strength. Bård made his hand lie limp in her grasp, forcing himself to keep from reacting to the touch.

“Jesus, I'm a mess.”

“You're really not. You're doing surprisingly well,” Nina said, voice pitched low, as if she was calming a child or a wild animal. “You're incredibly strong to be holding it together like you are.”

“Yeah, well, right now I'm holding my legs together. Excuse me,” Bård said and stood up to limp to the bathroom. Selma nodded at him with a friendly smile on her red face when he passed her counter, undoubtedly having heard every word exchanged between him and Nina. Bård tried to hasten his steps. He scrambled through the door and closed it, only relaxing when the lock engaged. He propped up his crutches in the nearest corner and leaned his back against the door.

“Fuck,” Bård whispered and ran his fingers through his hair, digging his short nails into the scalp. The bathroom was small and worn, displaying evidence from decades of hard use. He bent closer to the sink and made a thin trickle of cold water flow from the tap. Why had he called Anders a ghost? He was a man, a true monster, not an immaterial apparition half-seen in shadows. What happened to them was real. He dipped his fingers in the water and slid them along his cheeks, leaving wet streaks under his eyes.

Bård blew out a breath through his mouth and sucked a fresh one in through his nose. He repeated the action a few times until he felt steadier, more in control. He wasn't looking forwards to showing his face to Nina again, but he'd do it anyway, if only to prove that he could. The last remains of pride and dignity in him didn't allow him to hide in a bathroom any longer. He was ready to step out.

“Whew, room for more now,” Bård said as he sat back down at the small round table. Nina was gracious enough to allow the charade.

“And they say kids these days have no manners,” she drawled and took a sip of her coffee. Her slice of cake was long gone and only greasy cream stains remained on the white plate.

Bård grabbed his fork and shovelled the last pieces into his mouth. His stubborn spirit was rousing from a long hibernation and he felt nearly drunk with daring. He wanted to go out, walk until he got blisters in his palms and then go a little bit further. He was free and full of life. The shackles of fear around his chest could be broken if he chose so. No more hiding.

“How long are you still staying here?” Nina asked while Bård finished his hot chocolate.

“Don't know really, depends on my brother. You?”

“Equally uncertain,” Nina replied with a shade of wistfulness in her tone.

“You're pretty close with your cousin,” Bård noted and wiped his mouth on a paper napkin.

“We grew up together actually. His parents died when he was young and my dad brought us both up. He's like a brother to me.”

“That's a special bond,” Bård found himself saying before he could stop the words. He turned his eyes down with embarrassment and started shredding the napkin with his slender fingers. Nina made no comment.

“I should go, three hours of daylight left,” Bård said. “It was nice having coffee and cake with you.”

“Thank you. I see you found those manners after all,” Nina winked and they both smiled. She stood up and waited for Bård to get his crutches under him and collect a plastic bag from the table. Bård had bought a skolebolle to bring to his brother, hoping it would cheer him up a bit. He and Nina said their final thank yous to Selma and exited the shop onto uneven pavement. The rain had lightened to a soft drizzle.

“I'm at the Edge,” Nina said as they stood next to each other, about to part ways. Bård looked at her with uncertainty.

“The hotel a couple of kilometres south from here. In case there's something you want to do with that information.”

“I don't...” Bård started, letting the sentence hang unfinished.

Nina looked at Bård with something plastered on her face, something the unnatural red of her make-up couldn't mask. Something primal and fierce. Bård had to avert his eyes.

“See you.”

“Ye-yeah, bye,” Bård replied, fingers squeezing the black hand-grips of his crutches. He watched as Nina walked away with a swaying gait, bare calves peeking out from under her black skirt. He kept looking until she turned a corner and disappeared from view, leaving him with a slightly unreal feeling.

Bård turned towards the harbour and started following the street slowly, steps uncertain on the wet stones. He stopped once to ostensibly readjust his grip on the crutches and re-tie the knot on the plastic bag hanging from one of them, but why he leaned his back against the nearest building was not to gain support but to diminish the tingly sensation in his neck at being so exposed. No one else was in sight and most of the windows around him were dark, but Bård couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. The rational part of his brain kept telling him to go back to the hotel and to the safety of his room, but the stubborn, determined part of him pushed him onwards, guiding his steps on the slick surface.

Seagulls wailed louder the closer to the water Bård got. They released short screeches in rapid succession, as if mocking his efforts. The young man advancing steadily on his crutches looked to the overcast sky, cheeks spotted with raindrops and hair lying flat against his head. He saw a faraway fell on the horizon, accompanied by a town lying at its foot, the warm lights of civilisation penetrating the hazy twilight even from a distance. The view was oddly comforting.

The difference between the scenery in front of him and the northern forest they had been lost in was significant enough to prevent the goosebumps on Bård's arms from developing into jerky shivers. The sky was the same, but it wasn't framed by trees on each side, always intruding into his field of vision. And although the ground he saw was still green, only sporadically peppered with red and yellow, he could look down at his feet and soak in the dull grey of the pavement. It was pathetic how much the urban environment calmed him down.

Bård made his way to the edge of the water. He spied a massive metal knob on the stone pier, presumably there for large ships to moor into when they visited the city. The newly-painted coat of red on it suggested that it hadn't been used in years and was mainly there as a historical decoration. Whatever its intended purpose, it found use as a bench for Bård. He sat down on the thing and groaned in relief as he stretched out his leg and let his crutches clatter to the ground.

The sun was only a faint glow somewhere low behind the clouds. Bård was getting cold as he sat on the metal object, his wet blue jeans struggling to keep in the warmth. The garish pink cast was hidden beneath his generous pant leg and further protected from the elements by an oversized woollen sock. Bård resented that visible sign of weakness. And at the same time, he was glad for it, since it made others keep their distance from him and refrain from asking too many questions. He didn't consider himself fragile, but sometimes his physical reactions to certain visual stimuli took him by surprise. A crowded room, a tall and muscular figure, the open sky, all could result in inexplicable rapid beating of his heart. It was pathetic and embarrassing and he wanted no one to be aware of it.

“Doing surprisingly well my ass!” Bård hissed under his breath. He looked at the bakery's plastic bag lying on the ground, sitting in a shallow puddle of water. Hopefully there weren't any holes in the thin material or the sweet pastry would be soggy by the time he found the fortitude to get up.

Bård wondered if his brother was the force holding him together: the reason to leave his room every day and to nourish his more or less well-groomed body. If he had been on his own, would he be lying in bed at that moment, unwashed and with a week's growth of beard on his face, instead of sitting outside in the early evening. Bård wasn't alone, there was a presence that encouraged him into pushing himself to take the steps he would never take for himself. He had the courage to leave since he had something to return to.

A seagull gave a long series of short, shrill barks, piercing the waning day with its message. Bård looked at the town across the water, proudly displaying lights that signalled life. The forest was on his mind, but the memory seemed more distant than it had before. He could close his eyes and only see darkness, unsullied by the tree-framed blue sky. He could breathe without the smell of wet moss in his nose. It was time to return.

*****

Bård made it back to the hotel with what felt like the last of his strength. He'd done more walking on that day than the previous week combined and the experience left him drained. But he didn't allow himself to collapse on the bed when he entered his small room. Instead, he stripped out of his soaked clothes, covered his cast with clumsy fingers and took a long hot shower. He felt energised afterwards, but his leg was hurting viciously, more so than it had for a few days. He downed a couple of painkillers and pulled on his last clean pair of underwear.

After Bård finished dressing himself, he lied down on the bed to elevate his leg for a moment, hoping to dull the sharp throbbing. His earlier thoughts about not secluding himself in the room invaded his mind and he promised to get going soon. His mission to deliver the delicacy to his brother could wait, but the fire in Bård had been stirred and he was determined to keep himself moving. Being tired and sore was nothing but a poor excuse in his merciless mind.

Half an hour passed by with Bård floating in a half-aware haze on the bed. The clock on the wall revealed that the end of the visiting hours was fast approaching. With a groan, Bård fished his crutches from the floor and limped to the door, ready to face the wind again. As he made his way towards the correct corridor, he noticed a vending machine and bought two over-priced bottles of regular, sugar-filled Pepsi. Vegard's usually plump cheeks were starting to look hollow and Bård wouldn't tolerate it. He slipped the bottles into his bag, stretching the thin material dangerously, and continued hobbling towards his brother's room. Bård soon realised that having something relatively heavy dangle from a crutch was a bad idea. Each movement of his arm was magnified by the swinging pendulum the bag had become, threatening to throw him off balance. He somehow reached the door unscathed and opened it, perspiring nearly imperceptibly.

The TV was on in the room when Bård entered. He cringed at the loud noise and kept moving, head held down. The first bed was occupied by an obese man who only gave him a cursory glance before returning to the show he was watching, some American police thing. Bård didn't look at the man in the middle bed, the one who had tried to converse with him earlier. He could still feel the eyes on him, judging and despising. Without slowing down, he slipped behind the curtain separating his brother from the rest of the room.

“You okay?” Vegard asked. He was sitting up, looking livelier than he had that morning.

“Yeah fine, just carrying too much loot!” Bård declared with a grin. He untangled the handles of the plastic bag from his crutch and dug in to pull out a slightly moist paper bag with Aune's Bakery's logo on it, presenting it to his brother with the pride of a new parent. Vegard reached for the bundle with his right hand, cautiously grabbing a corner and placing it on his lap.

“What's this?” he asked, not making a move to open the pouch.

“A little souvenir from town,” Bård replied.

“You went exploring?” Vegard asked with delighted surprise.

“Hardly a journey significant enough to write home about, but I grabbed some air and stretched my legs a bit.”

Bård's ankle was throbbing miserably despite the painkillers he'd downed earlier. His palms joined the choir, unhappy with the excessive amount of work they'd had to do bearing his weight. But he wasn't dismayed by the pain: it was a good kind of agony, the result of pushing his body to the limit and beyond.

“Did you go by the airport?”

“What? No. I went to see the harbour after visiting the bakery with Ni- with these monstrous things!” Bård said and gave his crutches a disgusted shake. Vegard smiled at that, introducing some life on his pale face.

“Open it,” Bård said and indicated the bag. While Vegard busied himself peeling the paper apart with one hand, Bård took out the bottles and set them on the high table by the bed. He opened his and took a long swig, nearly grunting with pleasure as the sweet liquid filled his mouth. Vegard was taking his time fumbling with the wrapping. Bård peeked at him to see a frustrated frown create a deep groove between his eyes.

“Need a hand?” Bård asked. Vegard shook his head almost aggressively and continued his efforts.

“Oh!” Vegard exclaimed in delight when the plump pastry was finally revealed. It was slightly dented and most of the sugary coconut chips had latched onto the side of the paper bag, but the sight of the battered bun ignited the flame of desire behind Vegard's eyes. His smile grew and the tip of his tongue peeked out to lick his dry lips. Bård hadn't seen him as animated in a long while.

“Thank you,” Vegard said and bit into the bun without hesitation. Bård watched in fascination as his brother took a bite, tilted his face minutely upwards and closed his eyes, chewing unusually long with a look of near bliss dominating his features.

“You eaten anything else today?” Bård asked as he reached over to the table and opened the other bottle. Vegard ignored the question and set his bun down to free his hand for grabbing the opened bottle. He downed a quarter of it in one go before pausing to breathe.

“Gods I missed Pepsi,” Vegard said before taking another bite of the skolebolle. Bård tried not to roll his eyes.

“Important things in life, huh,” he drawled and slouched lower on the chair. His relatively high level of activity during the day was catching up with him fast. The room was comfortably warm and his brother's munching sounds were soothing. Bård's lids lowered almost on their own.

“It's just...” Vegard paused his eating and set the bun down on the paper again. His fingers were dotted white by the remaining bits of coconut and sugar. He turned his eyes towards the window and scratched his chin, unknowingly spreading a couple of small chips to the coarse hairs of his stubble.

“I really thought we wouldn't make it out of there. I really thought we would die.”

Bård sat up straight, lifting his gaze to his brother's slumped form. His heart started pounding faster, making his fingers unsteady. All remaining sleepiness vanished in an instant.

“But we did make it. We're out and we're fine,” Bård said with as much conviction as he could muster. He could feel his pulse around his eyes, making the room shimmer at the edges.

“Do you still hear the water?” Vegard asked. His gaze was directed to his lap now, fingers picking at the half-eaten bun.

Bård closed his eyes. He saw the trees. He saw the cloudless blue sky, the crowded grey sky, the pitch-black night sky. He saw the uniform green and warm brown of pines. He saw the top of Anders' head. He saw his brother's blurry form, unrelentingly wading forwards through ferns and heathers. He saw the rock where it all ended.

“No,” Bård replied, unable to face the expectant look on his brother's face.

“Oh,” Vegard said very quietly. That one defeated syllable seemed to carry all he was feeling and keeping within.

Bård shrank further back into himself. His brother was reaching out to him, but he couldn't join the connection of shared pain. Vegard's narrow shoulders were trembling under the burden of his own memories, he'd crumble if Bård added his lingering fears to the load.

“You got some coconut on your chin,” Bård noted and picked up a tissue from the box on the table. He bent over to wipe his brother's face, fingers almost steady. The show on TV hit the climax of the episode with excessive gunfire and screeching tyres.

“I'm sorry,” Vegard whispered. Bård ceased his motions.

“Whatever for?”

“I failed you,” Vegard said, turning his head away. He faced the bland curtain and pulled his shoulders close, hunching into himself. “They said you made it out of the forest by yourself. I couldn't even get you to safety.”

“Hey, come now, that's unfair. You were hurt worse than I was.”

“You couldn't walk. Still can't.”

“Neither could you. Did anyone tell you how close you came to dying? Do you remember anything about the last night in the forest?”

Bård found himself staring into his brother's tear-filled brown eyes. The sight rendered him breathless. Vegard wasn't supposed to be crying. He was supposed to be getting better and thinking about returning home, eyes in the future, not scrutinising the past.

“I knew I couldn't make it. But I had to,” Vegard said. The depth of the pain written in the lines on his face burned into Bård's retinas, reaching a cold tendril into his stomach and twisting it. The stubborn loyalty of his brother gave him hope. Strength resided in that slender body, clinging to life against all odds.

“How did you not succumb?” Bård whispered, more to himself than as a valid question for his brother.

“I couldn't leave you. But it seems I only hindered you with my weakness.”

“You did as much as you could. We had no choices left,” Bård said, stating the obvious yet bringing to light a truth he only then fully appreciated and applied to himself. Staying with Vegard would've meant certain death to them both. The limits of their strength had been reached and surpassed.

The guilt he bore was pointless.

In a move that startled him, Bård dove into his brother's arms, eliciting a surprised intake of breath from the smaller man. After the initial gasp, Bård heard nothing over his own hitching sobs that burst out as if a dam he hadn't known existed had been punctured into a flood of tears and snot and saliva. He pulled Vegard closer to him, lifting the upper body off the bed, squeezing the back with both arms. Bård clung to his brother like a scared child, paying no heed to how easily he handled him. The freely flowing tears didn't relieve the burning in his eyes, but only invited more to take the place of each fallen drop.

A firm hand rested between Bård's shoulder blades, spreading a small circle of warmth that made him feel secure and protected. As his crying started to ease a bit, the touch became more reassuring, more in control. By the time Bård was ready to lift his head off his brother's shoulder, the hand on his back was shaking.

“Fuck, sorry,” Bård said while wiping his face on his sleeve. He sniffed and swallowed, trying to get the irritation in his throat to fade.

“At least you didn't crush my bun,” Vegard noted, voice sounding obstructed, like he could barely get the words out. Bård laughed anyway, a desperate kind of a chuckle that forced the tears further down.

“Could turn it into a cheesecake bottom then,” Bård suggested. His eyes were still swimming in excess moisture, but the tears had stopped making trails down his cheeks.

“That's crushed cookies, not bun,” Vegard corrected, finding solace in the familiarity of nitpicking. “Hey did Aune's Bakery have cheesecake?”

Bård followed his brother's line of sight to the crumpled paper bag on his lap, proudly declaring its origin in blue letters. Bård had managed to sit on the half-eaten pastry, but it showed no signs of the abuse.

“You know, I think they did. We should go together one day.”

“Yeah,” Vegard said. His endurance seemed to be waning: the pallor on his face was more pronounced and he was cradling the broken arm closer to his body. Bård removed the bun from his lap and picked up his crutches.

“Get some sleep,” he urged and rose from the chair.

“You too,” Vegard said and scooted lower to lie down. He closed his eyes and appeared to be gone before Bård had completed the process of standing up.

Bård reached over to turn off the bedside lamp. Vegard's breathing sounded heavy, like he was utterly exhausted from the conversation. Bård thought he might be reflecting his own sensations on his brother. He felt wrung dry, with too many ups and downs and activity in one day after several days' stillness. His too-soft hotel bed had never been more inviting.


	5. Chapter 5

After his first forays into the heart of Tromsø, Bård continued exploring the city, feeling less and less bothered by the space around him on each new trip. Before long he was dodging people on the streets without paranoia showing him the familiar face of the monster he knew too well. He saw Nina with varying levels of regularity. Her cousin was improving slowly and she feared grim tidings might be on the horizon. Bård was distressed by how little sympathy he was able to experience or exhibit. He wondered if the trauma had left him deeply self-absorbed, unable to pull his head out of his own ass for anyone else. The crisis counsellor he had spoken to had assured him it was not unexpected and likely temporary while he recovered. Bård wasn't convinced.

The yearning for home was growing stronger by the day. Bård was tired of his stagnant existence, of being chained to the hospital, of having his life put on hold. And yet, he kept his excursions into town short, spending more time in his hotel room or by his brother's bedside than roaming the unfamiliar streets. Perhaps he wasn't as ready to face the world as his impatience made him feel. Perhaps he was just a coward.

When Bård slid behind the plastic curtain, he found Vegard lying on his side, facing the window. Daylight reflected off his hair, giving it a vibrant glow that was at odds with his general demeanour. The television on the other side of the partition continued to blare, presently showing some soap opera rerun. Bård ignored the noise and approached his usual spot.

“Morning,” he greeted as he sat down. His leg was itching like crazy under the cast but he saw nothing long and slim at hand to slip inside for a good scratch. Bård focused on his brother instead to distract him from the irritating sensation.

“Yeah,” Vegard mumbled. His hair was hiding most of his face with the dark wavy strands laying on his cheek and covering his eyes. His blanket was pulled low, revealing his curled up position and green pyjamas.

“Want me to go the same way I came?” Bård asked lightly, equally ready to follow the suggestion as he was to laugh it off.

“No,” Vegard said with a slight touch of animation. Bård shrugged and got comfortable in the chair.

“I called mamma last night. Well first I tried like a hundred times before I finally lucked out. I need a new cell phone, maybe one that can connect to the internet. We should go on a shopping trip when we get home, rejoin the modern age. I swear a caveman had better long-distance communication options than I currently do.” Bård let his words wither when he realised he was trying to fill the silence with frivolous chatter. He shot a discreet glance at his brother, but if Vegard was bothered or annoyed by him, he didn't express it.

“In any case, she said Hermod will be visiting the city tomorrow and he'd like to meet us. I said fine, whatever. You up to it?”

Vegard didn't reply at first. He kept staring at the window through the curtain of hair, clutching the pillow with his right hand. The left one was lying on the mattress, immobile and unwieldy. Bård found his eyes drawn to the heavily wrapped limb, as if trying to see what hid beneath the white cocoon.

“No,” was all Vegard said. He offered no explanation and Bård didn't demand one.

The frustration of uncertainty perturbed Bård. He closed his eyes for a moment and bit his teeth together, breathing deeply. Vegard had seemed so well on the previous day. They had joked together, talked about all sorts of random topics and snacked on a bag of cookies Bård had bought from a nearby convenience store. At one point a nurse had even told them to keep it down when their merriment had risen to raucous levels. Bård wondered if the physical cost had caught up with his brother or if he was just having one of those days again.

The languid stillness was familiar to Bård as well. On some days, all he could manage was to get out of bed and visit the bathroom before disappearing under the covers again. The sky was an enemy then, bombarding him with memories he couldn't conquer, making him retreat and hide his shame. On those days all he wanted was to disappear.

But days like that were increasingly rare. Bård didn't dare to be too optimistic, but his spirits tended to maintain a steady level now, without dramatic drops. He wished he could trust it to remain so.

“That's okay,” Bård said with a husky softness in his voice. He cleared his throat and continued: “I'm sure I'll get the latest family gossip from him. Find out when Marit's trip to Thailand will be and other equally important information.”

Vegard stayed still while Bård continued talking about whatever occurred to him, grasping any subject he could put to words. The younger brother unleashed his sarcastic wit, pushing the white wall of anguish further away. Vegard didn't express any overt interest, but when Bård stopped talking for a moment to grab a glass of water from the bedside table, brown eyes peeked at him from under the mass of dark hair, seeming to beg him to keep filling the silence with his voice. Bård obeyed, keeping them both from crumbling.

“ – and it could be funny to end with a song too, to match the beginning. I still think this can happen. I need this to happen. If not... well, that's irrelevant. The song at the ending should be impro, keep it from getting too practised and formal and maybe –“

“What?”

“What what?” Bård asked and swallowed some water while he looked at his brother in confusion. Vegard hadn't participated in the conversation beyond occasional grunts of agreement, making Bård almost forget he was listening.

“What if not?” Vegard asked quietly. He kept his eyes diverted. The fist around the corner of his pillow tightened, turning the knuckles white.

“I didn't think you were actually listening,” Bård stalled.

“What if we don't make the show? What if we drop the project? What then?”

“It's not important. We're doing this, so it doesn't matter –”

“I don't want to.” Vegard said the words with no passion, but the strength they carried made the fine hairs on Bård's arms rise.

“What do you mean?” Bård asked.

“I don't want to do it. Which part is hard to understand? I don't want to fucking do it!” Vegard snapped. He moved his right hand from clutching the pillow to covering his face. The left one was drawn nearer to his body, the knees lifted closer to his chest.

“But we decided this months ago. We fought for this. This is our dream,” Bård said, allowing heat to enter his voice, but keeping the volume low. “You can't just change your mind now with –“

“I can't move my fingers,” Vegard interrupted.

“That's the point of the cast,” Bård retorted without missing a beat.

“I can't even feel them. The whole fucking arm is all pain or nothing. I have no control.”

Bård was left in stunned silence. How could he even begin to convey the intensity of the concern that drenched him following his brother's outburst? All words of comfort would come out hollow and false. Any assurances he could give would be based on hope alone. No expression of sympathy could change reality. Suddenly the dark hair obstructing Vegard's face was an impenetrable wall between them. With trembling fingers, Bård brushed the wavy strands off the forehead and tucked them behind the small round ear. Vegard closed his eyes and allowed the touch without moving.

“It'll be okay,” Bård said, hating himself for the empty platitude that escaped his lips.

Vegard sniffed audibly. His mouth twisted and his nose scrunched up, close to tears but fighting them. Bård looked around swiftly, as if to make sure they were alone. It was a futile endeavour: the flimsy curtain was all that stood between them and the other men in the room. But the noises from the television were loud enough to mask their quiet conversation, allowing Bård to pretend that they had some measure of privacy. He left his crutches on the floor and limped around the bed, taking support from the wall and the metal footboard. With a small grunt of effort, he lifted himself up behind his brother, digging his hip bone into the sturdy mattress and pushing his chest against Vegard's back to utilise his entire body as a wall between his brother and the rest of the world.

Bård slipped his arm around the slim figure on the bed, feeling the soft material of the pyjamas and the individual ribs on his chest. Vegard offered no resistance beyond stiffening for a moment at the initial contact. Bård waited, ready to back off if he had judged the situation wrong, but after brief hesitation, Vegard's warm hand latched onto his arm and gathered it against his neck, squeezing the fingers painfully. His sobs were silent, but Bård could feel each hitchy breath against his own lungs.

“We'll get through this,” Bård whispered, lips all but touching the wavy hair near his brother's ear. “We're in this together, whatever this is. Don't leave me behind.”

_Like you left him,_ the traitorous voice in Bård's mind reminded. He bit his lips together. The guilt wouldn't leave him, no matter how vehemently he convinced himself that his actions had been justified, even essential. Reason, Bård had discovered, had very little to do with his emotions. The forest remained.

“Sorry,” Vegard managed after a few minutes had slipped by. He untangled his fingers from Bård's to reach for the tissues on the bedside table. The younger brother repositioned his hand to rest on Vegard's shoulder while he blew his nose and wiped his face. Bård's other arm was getting numb from being awkwardly tucked behind him to keep it out of the way. He moved his fingers and flexed his muscled to regain steady bloodflow. Vegard must've felt the fidgeting. He let go of Bård's hand and rolled over, creating a gap between them. Bård was acutely aware of the sudden coldness stinging his front, leaving only emptiness where his brother's warm body had been.

“Sorry,” Vegard repeated, voice stronger this time. He sat up and directed his gaze to the window. The sky was filled with clouds of varying intensity, effectively muting the autumn sun.

“Did you mean it?” Bård asked the back of his brother's head.

“I don't know,” Vegard said quietly. He was cradling the injured arm in his lap, shoulders hunched. Sitting on the edge of the bed in his soft pyjamas, he looked fragile and defenceless.

“Just don't worry about it now. We don't know anything for certain, do we?” Bård asked. He scooted across the bed to sit next to his brother and tossed his legs over the side. He hoped the movement would hide his face enough that Vegard wouldn't see how forced his optimism was.

Vegard shook his head, stringy curls lazily following the movement. Bård put his hand on his brother's shoulder again, but the moment of urgent need had passed and the physical contact felt forced. He turned the touch into a quick pat and withdrew his arm.

“I'm going out for lunch,” Bård declared. “Want anything?”

“Nah,” Vegard said and yawned. He sounded more disheartened than tired.

“Get some rest,” Bård suggested as he stood up, cringing in preparation for the painful twinge from his ankle that never came.

“I'm tired of resting,” Vegard complained with a distinct whine in his tone. Bård smiled, the expression hidden from his brother. Petulance had to be a good sign.

“The sooner you get better, the sooner we can go home.”

“Fine,” Vegard huffed and lied down. He pulled the blanket up to his shoulders and relaxed against the pillow. A frown still creased the skin between his brows, but the darker shadows around his eyes seemed lighter. Bård hoped his brother's fears had been alleviated, but he suspected they had merely been pushed deeper to simmer under the surface, ready to surge back at the slightest provocation.

“We'll figure everything out,” Bård said with as much meaning as he could weigh his words with. Vegard nodded, silently acknowledging the sentiment. Or maybe he was too worn to dispute the optimism. Bård slipped around the curtain, avoided looking at the other occupants of the room, and walked out with heavy steps.

*****

“– so it really is a fascinating process. I don't have kids, but maybe in the future, and then I can witness the development in practise,” Bård said and shoved a large piece of steak into his mouth.

“I wouldn't have guessed you're so interested in language learning,” Nina said. Her red lipstick had left a stain on the rim of her glass, turning the water droplets near the top pink. She caught the tainted moisture on her slender fingers and blotted the tips against her white napkin. Bård's eyes were transfixed on the uneven smudges, utilising them as a focal point for his gaze as he chose to reveal more about himself.

“I've been in contact with a few languages in my life. Did I mention we grew up in an international setting?”

“No, do tell more,” Nina encouraged and fixed her eyes on the young man sitting across from her. The dim lighting in the restaurant softened her face into generic blandness, making her distinctive features fade. Something familiar lingered and Bård felt a twinge of recognition, but he brushed it aside as unimportant and proceeded to briefly describe his childhood in Africa. Nina gave him her full attention, asking specifying questions and laughing in all the right places. The plates gradually emptied of the heavy dishes they'd ordered.

“That must've given you a much wider perspective than a typical kid,” Nina said while Bård drained his glass of water.

“I guess. Shall we get some dessert?”

“I shouldn't. But I'm not ready to get up yet either,” Nina said and smiled. Her hair fell on her shoulders in soft curls, reflecting the yellow lighting with the unnatural shine of too much produce. The humidity of the overcast day had made Bård's hair resemble his brother's untamed mane, and he self-consciously tucked a few stray strands behind his ears. He had yet to buy a hairbrush.

A waiter passed their table and Bård flicked his fingers meaningfully at him. The young man came over and collected their empty dishes, revealing his inexperience in the time it took him to stack them up. Bård checked the menu for the cheapest dessert items while he was fumbling with the plates, and ordered two small bowls of chocolate ice cream. Nina smiled appreciatively, all but licking her lips.

“This trip has been such a financial strain,” she sighed after the young waiter had gone. Bård still didn't know what she did for a living or how she could afford to be away for weeks at a time, but something kept him from asking directly. She offered little personal information beyond her daily reactions and Bård was fine with that, replying in kind by withholding details of his life as well. They weren't friends, not exactly, but their status as tied to the hospital, anxious for their loved ones gave them a common ground to bond over.

“I don't even want to look at the hotel bill when it comes,” Bård agreed. “Do you think you'll stay much longer?”

“I honestly don't know. What about you?”

“I think we can go home soon. My brother's looking better every day, I don't think they'll keep him another week even,” Bård replied. He saw a shadow pass over Nina's face and quickly apologised.

“Ah, no, don't be sorry! It's wonderful that your brother is healing. And you as well, you look so much more lively these days than when you were in the hospital as well.”

“Oh, I guess I haven't noticed,” Bård said with a slight flush rising on his cheeks. “I do feel better.”

“And it's good to get back home. To Bergen?”

“I think we'll stay with our parents for a while. These things are making even the simplest chores difficult,” Bård kicked the crutches lying under the table, “and I don't think my brother should be alone yet.”

“He's lucky to have you looking out for him,” Nina said. Her eyes were nailed to Bård's, looking at him with an intensity that made him slightly uncomfortable. Bård shifted his weight on the chair and averted his gaze.

“I hope I'm not too bold in saying this,” Nina started, “but I'll miss you when you're gone.”

Bård was saved from giving his immediate response by the waiter arriving with their dessert. He set down two small glass bowls filled to the brim with chocolate ice cream that was crowned by whipped cream and fresh cherries. Bård thanked the waiter and resisted commenting on how stereotypical the dishes were. Instead, he swallowed a spoonful of the cold treat and constructed a carefully neutral response to Nina.

“I don't currently have a phone, but I'll give you my parents' landline number, you can call if things get tough up here. Or if you just miss the sound of my voice,” Bård said and laughed, hoping it didn't sound as forced as it felt.

“I'd like that,” Nina said quietly before raising her spoon to her mouth. She didn't join in Bård's laughter. Her eyes were directed to her bowl, nearly disappearing from view in the dim lighting.

“Uhh, I don't have a pen,” Bård said, attempting to disrupt the moment that was becoming too intimate. Things were suddenly moving too swiftly and in a direction he wasn't certain about. He briefly considered giving a false number, but a glance in Nina's direction made him pause. She dug out a pen and a notepad from her pockets and set them on the table between them.

“I do appreciate this,” Nina said, as if to assure Bård of the rightness of his actions. He wrote down the correct number without hesitation.

The conversation reverted to language learning and evolved into pondering the significance of being raised in a multicultural background versus residing exclusively in a homogenous nation like Norway. Nina could keep up with Bård's quick changes of topic, but she didn't always laugh or even smile at his jokes or dry sarcasm. Bård found himself adjusting his discourse to better fit her more serious disposition, subduing his tendency towards irony. Their ice cream bowls emptied without their notice. Only the arrival of the waiter carrying the check alerted them to how late it had gotten.

“I hope this is not goodbye,” Nina said as she stood up from the table. Bård put his mother's card away, cringing at the total. He received his crutches from Nina and secured his grip to take a cautious step towards the door. His ankle had been fine throughout the meal, but sometimes it gave a twinge when he changed positions too swiftly. This time it stayed dormant. Bård realised he had focused on the anticipation of pain and allowed the silence to stretch too long after Nina's words.

“I'd love to hear from you again,” Bård replied without thinking too much. He was facing the door, not aware of the woman smiling behind him.

“You definitely will,” Nina said softly. She followed Bård as they exited the restaurant. The sun was hidden behind a thick mass of dark clouds, low on the horizon. The feel of rain was in the air.

“Will you make it back to the hospital okay?” Nina asked and pulled her short black jacket tighter around herself.

“Yeah, a bit of rain won't dissolve me,” Bård grinned. He shivered when the stinging wind hit him, penetrating under the layers of cloth he was wrapped in, but hid the reaction from Nina. “And I could use the fresh air.”

“Too fresh if you ask me,” Nina said and lifted her collar up. “See you!”

She turned away and dashed towards the nearest corner. Bård faced the opposite direction and started making his way back to his enticingly warm room at a more sedate pace. The patient hotel kept the inside temperature almost uncomfortably high, presumably to benefit the ill people who stayed there, well enough to not have to sleep under observation at the hospital, but not well enough to go to their homes which could lie several hours' drives away. Whatever the reason, Bård appreciated the effect.

He was two blocks away from his destination when the clouds fulfilled their promise. Large cold drops fell on his unprotected head, sliding down along his neck. He tried to hasten his steps but soon abandoned that plan when he nearly tripped over the too many limbs he controlled at the moment. The rubber tips of the crutches gave a good grip, but coordinating all the moving parts limited his speed. Bård was soaking wet when he reached the square separating the hospital from the hotel. For reasons he couldn't define, the encounter with Nina had left him yearning for his brother's soothing and distracting company. Remembering the distraught state he had left Vegard in, he wasn't sure if he should stay away after all. His ruminations were cut short by a familiar voice shouting his name.

“Hermod?” Bård asked, recognising the broad form of his cousin, approaching from the direction of the parking area. The blonde man with an uncommonly open face took a couple of running steps and reached Bård, slightly out of breath. 

“Thought you weren't coming until tomorrow?” Bård asked, eyeing the tall figure up and down. Hermod looked well, sporting a thick cap and a wide smile, clad in blue jeans and red plaid jacket.

“The client wanted to meet earlier so I figured I'd better make the drive tonight and not at four in the morning tomorrow. But hey, how are you doing?”

“Getting increasingly wet.”

“To the hospital?” Hermod asked and pointed at the larger building. Bård nodded and started making his way towards the invitingly open glass doors.

“I'll pop to the bathroom, could you grab us something to drink at the cafeteria?” Bård asked and headed for the nearest public restroom without waiting for an answer.

“Uh, sure,” Hermod replied and watched the young man limp away. He had expected to meet both brothers at the same time, having heard that Vegard was out of the intensive care unit already, but he appreciated the chance to talk to his cousins individually as well. With a shrug, he turned to find the sign pointing him to the correct direction and started walking.

The cafeteria was sparsely populated, probably due to the late hour. Hermod bought two mugs of tea at the counter and carried them to a small table near the low partition wall that separated the space from a hallway. He chose the side with a large green plastic plant behind the chair and sat down to wait for Bård. The sharp leaves of the imitation yucca palm dug into the back of Hermod's fleece jacket. He shifted a bit on the seat and pushed the table forwards with enough force to jostle the mugs. He was just wiping away the tea he had spilled when he heard the soft thump of crutches approaching. Bård gave him a nod of acknowledgement and sat down in the other chair, wincing a bit as he positioned his leg under the table. The young man looked rather worn and slightly thinner than he had been at their grandmother's birthday party, but otherwise reasonably well. Hermod sipped his tea and waited to judge the mood before opening his mouth.

“How was the drive here?” Bård asked and tasted his drink.

“Uneventful,” Hermod replied. “Where were you coming from? I thought you aren't allowed to leave the hospital.”

“I can come and go as I please, I'm no longer a patient here.”

“Ah, doing better then?”

“I think we can go home soon,” Bård said. His eyes were directed downwards and Hermod wasn't sure if he could read knowledge or false confidence in them. He noted that Bård had now twice dodged the question about his condition, strongly hinting that he didn't want to give a straight answer. Hermod decided he would play along and stop asking. He had spoken with the brothers' mother, his aunt, and sworn to tread lightly – and report back to her.

“That's great! Vegard's out of danger then?”

“Yeah, he's unhooked from almost all the hardware.” Bård's blue gaze met Hermod's, showing the first signs of genuine warmth.

“Good to hear, man. How long do we have before the visiting hours are over?”

“Not today,” Bård said. Hermod raised an eyebrow in question.

“Bad day,” was all Bård offered as explanation.

“Okay. Maybe tomorrow?”

Bård's nod led to silence during which both men sipped their drinks. The late afternoon was turning into evening and Bård started yawning. Hermod hid a smile when he realised the younger man was probably thinking he was being subtle about how tired he was, but the frequent hand rising to cover his mouth and the owlish blinking were clearly indicating that he wanted nothing but to crawl into bed. Hermod was about to cut the meeting short and claim he needed to go check in to his hotel when a tall blonde woman stopped by their table, carrying a steaming paper mug between her slender fingers.

“Hello,” she said. Hermod looked around uncertainly. There were no occupied tables near theirs and no people passing by them. He nodded cautiously, ready to mask his movement as something else if she turned out to be talking to someone else after all.

“Missed me already?” Bård grinned at the woman, revealing that he knew her. Hermod tried to evaluate what the relationship between them was, but Bård was giving him no hints in addition to the cheeky leer that could be directed at anyone who wasn't a perfect stranger. He felt no sense of intimacy between the two of them, but he would be the first to admit that he was a bit dense when it came to judging character.

“I'm Nina,” the woman said and offered her hand to Hermod. He grasped it gently and introduced himself.

“This is my cousin,” Bård explained and traded a significant look with the woman.

“Special bond,” she said. Hermod wondered if there was a joke or a veiled insult hidden somewhere in the exchange.

“I'm on my way up, just thought I'd pop by to say hello. Was a bit of a brutal walk from the hotel, it's pissing down out there! Where are you staying?” she asked and turned to Hermod, taking the tall man by surprise. He stuttered out the name, automatically answering the unexpected question.

“Catch you later!” she said and disappeared in a whirl of long beige coat and loud boots.

“Friend of yours?” Hermod asked after Nina was out of earshot.

Bård only shrugged in reply, showing definite signs of fatigue. He yawned again and wiped the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Where are you staying? I'll walk you there,” Hermod said in his most authoritative tone. Bård explained about the patient hotel and Hermod nodded, remembering the smaller building across the square where they met.

As Hermod escorted the shorter man across the slippery stone plaza, he was struck by a strong sense of wrongness. It wasn't just that Bård was awkwardly progressing on crutches with the wind whipping his hair, appearing frighteningly vulnerable, it was a lack of something. When the young man faltered and Hermod reached a hand to steady him, he realised what it was: Vegard.

He usually saw his cousins as a pair. They typically met during family gatherings like weddings, birthdays, funerals and graduation parties. The brothers travelled to the events together and tended to move as a single unit when mingling amongst the relatives. They were independent individuals with separate lives of course, but to Hermod's perception they were a package deal: when one showed up, the other wasn't far. Looking at Bård alone, it struck him how small the young man was, and how wrong it seemed when he was on his own in a strange town, injured and probably traumatised by what they had gone through. Hermod had heard from the family network that it had been a close call with Vegard. The idea that the siblings could've been permanently divided made his heart ache with pity.

“Will you be okay?” Hermod asked when they reached the patient hotel. The rain hadn't let up and his hair was plastered against his skull, dripping freezing rivulets inside his jacket. A hot shower was on his mind, but he had to make sure his cousin was safe before tending to his own increasingly pressing needs, or he'd never hear the end of it from his aunt.

“Yeah, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow? When does your meeting start again?” Bård asked while wiping his face with jerky movements.

“Much too early. But I'll swing by in the afternoon, we could have dinner together?”

“Sure, I'll be in Vegard's room or here,” Bård said and gave the door numbers to Hermod. The tall man nodded and wished his cousin a good night. He stayed long enough to witness Bård making it inside the building, then turned around and walked into the night.

*****

The morning dawned crisp and bright. The sun was shining from a clear blue sky, reflecting off the sea with painful intensity. Bård's steps had a spring to them that seemed at odds with his circumstance. He had turned in as soon as he'd parted with Hermod and the rest had done him good. He was ready to face the day, breathing in the fresh air of early morning as he crossed the short distance to the hospital. He was determined to have a proper breakfast, as little as he cared for the first meal of the day, and then see how his brother was faring.

Bård braved the crowded cafeteria and bought himself a sandwich and a smoothie. He devoured the meal in a couple of quick bites standing next to the partition wall since all tables were occupied. As he made his way towards the elevators, he noted that there was no sign of Nina. The woman had breakfast with him whenever they saw each other in the mornings, but it was not a daily occurrence. Bård wondered why she had come to greet Hermod. She'd always kept her distance when Bård had been with his mother, leading him to expect that she wouldn't approach him while he was with someone else. Shrugging the behaviour off as inconsequential, Bård finished the much too familiar trek to Vegard's room.

“Morning!” Bård said with accentuated cheer as he rounded the curtain. When his brother came to view, he was taken aback by the stricken look on Vegard's face. His complexion was off and his eyes seemed to have nothing behind them. Bård approached cautiously, recognising that something was wrong.

“Hermod's dead,” Vegard said in a voice muffled with bewilderment.

Bård stopped moving. He'd been in the process of sitting down and he ended up hovering above the chair until he released himself with a small huff of air. The crutches clattered to the floor unheeded.

“What?” Bård said, all eloquence lost in the shock.

“Hermod is dead. Hotel staff found him in the morning, he's been poisoned.”

“But... what? How do you know?”

“Mamma called. She knows someone who knows someone who works here. Looks like a professional job.”

“Hermod was assassinated?” Bård blurted out, close to hysterical laughter. Images from spy movies were starting to flood his mind, showing his good-natured cousin as a devious double agent.

“No, by a health care professional. Apparently whatever the person used was something with restricted access and not the most obvious choice. She didn't say what, didn't want us googling it to see what it does to a human.” Vegard's voice was flat, barely giving normal cadence to his words, as if he was reciting something without taking any of it in.

“How was it done?” Bård found himself asking, feeling detached and cold. Reality was becoming a fickle concept, stretching and losing its consistency. He wrapped his arms around himself.

“He got a delivery of complimentary cognac to his room. Except the hotel has no record of it in their system.”

“Holy fuck,” Bård said without passion. Vegard agreed with a silent nod.

“I just talked with him last night. We were gonna have dinner today. I just saw him,” Bård said slowly, the truth starting to sink in despite his resistance. There would be no dinner, no meeting, no talking to his cousin ever again. The magnitude of what had happened barely registered.

“I didn't even know he was here already. I should've met him yesterday,” Vegard said quietly, dark eyes directed down.

“I thought you didn't want to meet anyone,” Bård said, sounding more wounded than he'd intended.

“I thought so too,” Vegard muttered. His shoulders were drawn slightly forwards, as if reaching for his raised knees.

“In other news,” Vegard said after shaking his head, “I'll be discharged today.”

Bård blinked. Too much was happening in too short a time. He checked his watch and noted that it was only a little bit past eleven. The calm tranquillity he'd been encompassed in since waking up was long gone, leaving him exposed and uncertain.

“Fuck,” was all Bård vocalised. Vegard raised his eyebrows, having expected a positive response. Bård shook his hand dismissively in the air.

“No, that's good. It's just,” he stared at his brother until the brown eyes locked onto him, “too much.”

“I know,” Vegard said. The television blaring in the background tried to entice the occupants of the room into buying an inflatable mattress that was superior to all others in ways too numerous to recount in the space of one commercial. Bård allowed the empty noise to wash over him and leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair, cheek cradled in his palm.

“Our flight's tomorrow.”

“What?” Bård asked, taking his time to comprehend the meaning behind the words.

“Mamma's already sent the tickets and our passports for ID by courier, they should be at the hotel later today.”

“Right. Home. I'll get them,” Bård promised. He wondered how Vegard managed to sound so calm and unaffected. He'd probably had longer to process everything, being in the habit of waking up with the sun, but Bård remained suspicious.

“Do you think she's spying on us?” Bård asked, seemingly out of the blue. It was Vegard's turn to resort to a monosyllabic query.

“If she knows someone here, do you think she's been getting daily reports about us?” Bård clarified.

“I uhh, I don't know,” Vegard said, looking like he'd lost the thread of conversation and was scrambling wildly to pick it up again. Bård was almost perversely glad to see the carefully constructed façade of indifference crumbling and revealing that his brother was just as shaken as he was, only momentarily managing to hide it. Non sequiturs were a foolproof method to drag genuine responses out of Vegard when he was following a mental script, by deviating from his pre-planned interactions and forcing him to react intuitively.

“So when are they releasing you?” Bård asked, trying to cling to practical matters in order to keep their minds engaged. He feared the consequences of stopping to think too deeply.

“They said 'soon' two hours ago,” Vegard complained. Bård belatedly noticed that the IV tube was gone and only a bluish bruise remained on his brother's skin. Apart from the pronounced pallor and the cast around his arm, Vegard appeared fine. Too thin and evidently exhausted, but his eyes no longer glittered with fever and he was alert and aware. Bård wondered how he'd missed that gradual change, not realising how much better his brother seemed with each passing day. Maybe it really was time to go home and continue their lives. His optimism was almost immediately thwarted when he remembered the sullen, withdrawn, silent state of only one day ago. His brother was far from alright, but they'd have to manage on their own from now on.

“Have a room yet?” Bård asked, forcing his mind to focus and stop wandering down paths he didn't want to follow.

“Not yet, the patient hotel was full, so I'll have to find somewhere else,” Vegard said.

“The fuck you are! You're not staying alone on the first night out from a goddamn hospital!” Bård snapped, unable to stop the sudden shock of fear from manifesting itself as a raised voice.

“I can manage,” Vegard replied, stubborn as always. If the cast hadn't been stopping him, he probably would've crossed his arms on his chest for effect.

“It's not safe,” Bård said. Images of Hermod's friendly face flashed through his mind. He could still only barely grasp the events, but he accepted the facts: someone had killed their cousin in a seemingly secure place. He wouldn't even consider allowing his brother to risk the same happening to him.

“He could've been randomly chosen,” Vegard suggested, directly answering Bård's thoughts.

“But what if he wasn't?” Bård asked. “What if it was because of us?”

“Don't be paranoid.”

“Don't be stupid. Do you want to get yourself killed?” Bård asked without realising how heavy his question was. He swiftly moved on to prevent his brother from having the time to fully register his hasty words and to reply with honesty instead of outrage.

“My bed is easily wide enough for the both of us. It's just one night, no need to make mamma pay for a room you don't need,” Bård said. “And I really don't think you should be alone yet. What if you pass out on the floor, who will haul your ass to bed and make sure you don't choke on your own drool?”

“I'm not going to pass out on the floor,” Vegard muttered. Bård could hear that his resistance was over and he allowed his expression to soften.

“It's agreed then. You'll stay with me, and tomorrow we're finally going home.” As soon as the words left Bård's lips, he realised the time had truly come. The nightmare in the north would be over soon. All they had endured would be left behind and they would move on, scarred but stronger.

“So how far is the patient hotel?” Vegard asked, confirming that he agreed to the plan.

“Just across the yard, maybe three hundred metres,” Bård said. Vegard nodded, a determined frown declaring his intention to make it under his own strength. Bård considered borrowing a wheelchair from the hospital.

“I wish they'd hurry, I'm so tired of this room,” Vegard whined, unconsciously pushing his lower lip out. Bård hid his smile.

“You'll manage,” Bård said, earning a glare from his brother. He settled more comfortably in the chair and prepared to wait for as long as would be necessary.

Vegard snorted, sitting cross-legged on top of the covers for once, instead of lying down or leaning against the pillows. He had yet to change out of the pyjamas and into the clothes their mother had brought for him some time ago. Bård mused that he probably couldn't quite believe that he would finally be getting out and thus did nothing to speed up the process. Or maybe it just hadn't occurred to him that he could start preparing for the release already.

The delay turned out to be on account of a visiting family member who acted violently after hearing some bad news. Subduing the person didn't take long, but settling the aftermath required some time. When a short dark-haired nurse entered the room with Vegard's discharge papers in hand, Bård was ready to kiss her. His brother had been growing restless and trying to hide it, becoming irritable and uncertain in the process. Bård took upon himself the task of digging out Vegard's clothes from a drawer under the bedside table while the nurse gave his brother his prescriptions and instructions. Bård wasn't listening, he chose to concentrate on unfolding the wrinkly garments instead of having to acknowledge the length of the journey his brother was still facing.

Bård shook out dark blue jeans and a dark green hoodie. There were also Vegard's sneakers and a new belt crammed into the drawer, squished flat to fit inside. Bård looked at the laces on the shoes and the way Vegard was hugging the broken arm against his middle, and realised that he wouldn't be able to tie any knots on his own. Another stab of reality and responsibility made Bård squeeze the soft material of the t-shirt he was holding, fingers digging deep into the folds of the fabric.

“Good luck, hope to not see you again,” the nurse said, a smile warming her worn face. Vegard mirrored the look and turned to Bård.

“Finally free,” he said. The tone was muted, expressing none of the glee Bård expected. Had they not received the news about Hermod that morning, the brothers would've been positively celebratory. Now Bård silently helped his brother dress: easing a sleeve over the cast and tying his shoelaces, not even attempting to lighten the mood. Within minutes they were standing in front of the bed, fully dressed and inserting Vegard's papers into his pockets. He had nothing else to carry.

“Not gonna miss this place,” Vegard said quietly as he cast one last glance through the window before turning to cross the threshold for the last time.

Bård preceded him around the curtain and out from the room, ignoring the two men lying in the other beds. Vegard gave each of them a silent nod and followed. The brothers made their way to the hospital's pharmacy and emerged minutes later carrying a plastic bag stuffed with drugs. By the time they walked out through the front door, Bård thought Vegard looked a bit pale.

“Need to sit down?” the younger brother asked when he spotted a weather-beaten wooden bench near a large metallic statue occupying the lawn in front of the building.

“I'm good,” Vegard said, sounding distracted. Bård followed his gaze but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The sky stretched above them, an imposing expanse of blue with no clouds sheltering them from the sharp rays of the autumn sun. The trees framing the view were bare, having succumbed their leaves to the frozen coastal wind. The fells looming on the horizon were blazing red with the undergrowth preparing for winter. The sea was a scent in the air, unseen but impossible to escape.

“Do you hear that?” Vegard asked.

“Hear what?” Bård asked and focused on the perceivable aural phenomena around them. He heard the call of a seagull, loud and whiny, and the whistling of the endless wind rounding corners. Traffic was busy on the road next to them, emitting the sounds of engines and tyres. None of it seemed remarkable enough to comment on.

“Nothing,” Vegard said with a small smile and started walking towards the building on the opposite side of the paved yard. Bård followed, his natural nimbleness and recently gained experience allowing him to move effortlessly with the crutches, easily keeping pace with his brother's slower steps.

“Are you hearing things? Should I put you back in there?” Bård asked and indicated the hospital with a jerk of his head.

“No,” Vegard huffed a small, breathy bark of laughter. “Just amazed at being outside again, with no one constantly passing gas behind me. I most definitely won't miss my room mates.”

Bård strongly suspected that his brother had meant something different, something deeper, but he dropped the matter. If Vegard wanted to talk about it, he'd bring it up again. And Bård did understand, he'd been almost overwhelmed when he first stepped outside after being cooped up for so long, assaulted by the memories of the things he'd come to fear in such a short time. The fresh air alone had been a delightful novelty.

“Just say if you need a break,” Bård reminded and kept walking, lapsing into silence.

After reaching the hotel and settling into the moderately sized room, Bård was struck by a vague sense of aimlessness. They would leave on the following day, but as he had already packed his spare clothes into a plastic bag, there was nothing else to do in preparation, making the hours they had until nightfall empty. Vegard had solved the problem of idleness by stretching out on the bed and falling asleep. Bård smiled fondly, remembering the lectures about how disgusting hotel day covers were that Vegard liked to give on a regular basis. Apparently the invisible semen residue wasn't revolting enough to deter him from taking a nap.

The thought of staying in the silence of the room didn't appeal to Bård. He could've opened the small television to distract him, but he didn't want to disturb his brother. Vegard was sleeping quietly, curled up on his side, knees nearly in his mouth. He looked exposed somehow, unprotected without a blanket covering him. Bård hopped over to the small desk on the other side of the room and scribbled a note on the hotel stationery, announcing that he would grab them some food. He placed the piece of paper next to his sleeping brother and went to put his shoe back on. With a final reassuring glance at the familiar form on the bed, Bård closed the door and headed towards town.

*****

Bård was ravenously hungry when he fumbled with the key card to open the door, a bag of Chinese food hitched on his shoulder. His mind had controlled his body for most of the day, drowning all physiological demands under the mess of anxiety, but the enticing scent was forcing him to acknowledge his empty stomach. His thoughts kept returning to Hermod, thinking about how they had meant to meet for dinner and how he now had that meal under his arm, but his cousin wouldn't be sharing it. The tangible reality of the warm plastic container made the events solidify for him, driving the truth home. He wished it didn't. There was too much happening in his life at the moment after a long stretch of stillness, and he was struggling to keep up.

The door opened on silent hinges and Bård limped in, holding the crutches in his left hand while handling the key card with his right. He stopped to lower the take-away bag on the desk, bent down to remove his solitary shoe and soggy woollen sock and reached to hang his jacket on the peg by the entrance. Only then did he turn around and realise that the bed was empty.

Bård's heart gave a startled bounce and he jumped a bit. Reason kicked in immediately and he smiled at himself for being so paranoid. Vegard was obviously just visiting the bathroom. His shoes were neatly lined by the doormat, his hoodie sat rumpled on the bed, and Bård had the only key card. Leaving his crutches to lean against the desk, Bård crossed the short distance and sat down on the bed.

“I brought food!” Bård shouted to announce his return. The bathroom was situated behind a corner that hid it and a small closet from view of the main room. Bård found the floor plan curious but assumed it was on account of trying to utilise every single square metre of the building.

“Vegard?” Bård asked when there was no reply. The walls were not thick enough to muffle his voice and he heard no running water to indicate a shower that would drown him out. With Hermod's smiling face flashing before his eyes, Bård stood up and limped through the doorway to the other room, fear prickling his spine.

“Vegard!” Bård shouted and dropped to his knees. His brother was lying on the floor, head cushioned on his good arm, facing towards the main room. He wasn't moving.

“Oh god oh lord oh fuck,” Bård rapidly panted and brought his shaking hand to Vegard's neck. The skin was warm and soft, yielding under his inquisitive touch as he searched for the pulse point. A steady thrumming met his fingers, strong and regular. Bård released a sigh of relief and pulled in a shuddering breath. Vegard squinted his closed eyes and groaned.

“You scared the shit out of me!” Bård reprimanded his brother's semi-conscious figure. He put his hand on Vegard's bare arm and gave him a sharp shake. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“Huh?” Vegard seemed to be coming around. He blinked his eyes and found Bård's face, only inches from his. “What happened?”

“You tell me. I come from a quick food-gathering trip to find you passed out on the floor. What were you doing?”

Vegard considered the question for a moment. Bård realised he was sitting on his cast and repositioned his leg to relieve the pressure on his ankle. His crutches were still leaning on the desk where he'd left them.

“Had to use the bathroom. Got a bit dizzy on the way back so I lied down,” Vegard explained. Bård resisted the urge to slap him.

“You should've waited for me,” he told his still prone brother.

“I don't need you to hold my hand,” Vegard snapped, a visible flush rising on his pale cheeks.

“Clearly you do,” Bård said. His heart hadn't slowed down to normal rhythm yet, leaving him shaky and breathless. He gathered his good leg under him and stood up, taking support from the wall. Vegard started mimicking the actions, making it up on his knees before stopping and bracing himself against the floor with his right hand.

“Just wait,” Bård pleaded and limped back to retrieve his crutches. His ankle was tolerating some weight on it, allowing Bård to walk short distances unassisted, but anything longer than crossing the room made the pain flare up. He hadn't consulted a professional to ask whether it was good to push himself in that regard or if he should avoid straining the limb, but his own experimentation had defined his current limits.

“Here,” Bård said with what he hoped was a gentle tone that hid the fear-powered anger within. He leaned his weight on one crutch and offered his free arm to his brother. Vegard took it and allowed Bård to pull him to his feet. Before Vegard could test his own stability, Bård put his arm around his middle and clutched him close. “Got you.”

Bård didn't know how he managed to balance himself on one crutch and drag his brother with him, but somehow he succeeded and they began advancing towards the bed. Vegard had his feet under him and remained upright, but Bård could feel the pull whenever he started to stagger. Straining his aching muscles even further, Bård exerted more strength to keep them from tipping over together. When they were both seated on the bed, only heavy breathing could be heard for a moment.

“Let's not do that again,” Bård said after he was certain his voice wouldn't quiver. Vegard gave an amused grunt by his side, but Bård hadn't meant his words humorously. Within an hour of accepting responsibility for his brother, he had failed spectacularly. The time they had before the flight home on the following day loomed threateningly in front of him, making Bård fidget nervously with his hands. He wasn't strong enough for this.

“You said there's food?” Vegard asked, giving Bård a small nudge with his elbow. The younger brother smiled fondly despite his disheartened thoughts. Trust Vegard to latch onto practical matters and cut through Bård's brooding.

“Yeah, got us some Chinese: sweet and sour chicken.”

“Nice,” Vegard said, though he didn't sound enthusiastic. Bård suspected he had only brought up the food as misdirection, which was infuriatingly effective.

“I'll get it,” Bård offered and got up to limp to the desk where the plastic bag was waiting. He considered dragging the table to the bedside to set the food on it, but decided he wasn't coordinated enough for such an effort. He sat back down with a small grunt and handed the prize over to his brother.

Vegard set the bag on his lap and reached his good hand in. Bård felt the immediate compulsion to help, but checked himself. His brother wouldn't appreciate him overcompensating for his inadequacy earlier, as much as he wanted to. Many times Vegard had snapped at Bård back at the hospital, refusing the assistance he obviously needed, choosing to try and fail before admitting he couldn't manage. Bård hoped he was on his way to developing some sort of a radar to sense when his brother's stubbornness went too far so he could step in when needed, but only when needed. The road ahead of them had never seemed longer.

“Smells good,” Vegard noted after opening a plastic container filled with light brown sauce and chunks of vegetables and chicken. Bård nodded, busy balancing a box of rice on his lap and trying to open a bottle of water while holding a second one. Vegard reached over and plucked the opened bottle from the crook of Bård's elbow.

“You don't have to do everything by yourself,” the older brother reprimanded, not looking at Bård.

“I can manage,” Bård said, words coming out much harsher than he intended.

“Don't shut me out,” Vegard whispered towards the wall. His shoulders were hunched, turned away from Bård. The younger brother swallowed his angry words and closed his eyes. He was so far over his head. With the support structure of the hospital no longer there, Bård was starting to realise how much they had left unsaid under the excuse of lacking privacy. The thin curtain was gone now and he didn't know if he could handle what it revealed.

“We have a distribution problem,” Vegard suddenly declared, his words and tone so drastically different from the whisper mere seconds earlier that Bård was thrown off-balance.

“Yeah, we... what?” Bård stammered, scrambling to catch the train of thought his brother was riding on.

“We have no plates,” Vegard pointed out. Bård blinked.

“I guess I could go borrow some from the cafeteria.”

“No, wait,” Vegard said hastily, eyes widening briefly. “I mean, we have two containers here, we can use them.”

“I guess there's no distribution issue after all,” Bård said slowly. The raw vulnerability Vegard was blatantly displaying was unlike him. His way was to bottle up, to conceal and to ignore, forcing Bård to confront him directly if he couldn't read his subtle hints. Usually the younger brother was up for the challenge, but this time he let the curious behaviour slide. He was tired and hungry and in no mood to play guessing games.

“Yeah,” Vegard agreed and turned to the container on his lap. Awkwardly they divided the contents between them and settled down to consume their first proper meal of the day.

The brothers ate in silence, both hungry enough to cram the food in without much consideration to taste or texture. Bård tried to limit his mental processes to focusing on picking up his next bite with the disposable chopsticks, but his thoughts kept returning to Hermod and how this was the meal they had planned to share. Vegard seemed unburdened by such regrets and Bård reckoned he ought to be glad about it, but he only felt envy. Was it even real for Vegard, not having seen Hermod in a while? Had hearing about what happened to their cousin been purely theoretical for him; was there enough distance to not care?

“How far was Aune's Bakery?” Vegard asked after he had eaten half of his rice and sauce. Bård was torn from his grim thoughts and he eagerly accepted the offered distraction. Anything to keep his mind from sinking into the darkness he tried to escape daily.

“Maybe a kilometre or two. But we're not going, no matter how much you want that cheesecake.”

Vegard gave a very convincing pout. Bård couldn't help but snort in amusement. The familiarity of the exchange eased the tension in his shoulders, making him slump slightly. He finished his dinner and collected the boxes to toss them in the bin under the desk.

“When does the plane leave?” Bård asked as he limped back to the bed. He'd picked up the envelope with their passports and plane tickets from the reception earlier, but he'd left them on the desk with hardly a glance at them since.

“Twelve thirty,” Vegard replied without needing to think.

“We'll have to put an alarm on then,” Bård noted. He sat down and scooted back along the covers to lean against the wall. Vegard gave him an incredulous look.

“It's not exactly the crack of dawn.”

“Early enough. We'll probably have to get special treatment at the airport, what with the crutches and shit,” Bård said and fought not to yawn.

“You're allowed to stow them in the overhead compartment on the plane.”

“Well isn't life grand.”

“Do you need a nap?” Vegard asked, voice too flat to betray the emotion behind his words.

“Guess I'm a bit tired,” Bård admitted. Forgetting everything for a while was tempting, but he didn't want to leave his brother on his own. The tug between responsibility and selfish need was exhausting, and not the role he was used to.

“Lie down, I can sit over there.” Vegard pointed at the simple wooden chair with light blue padding by the desk. It didn't look particularly comfortable.

“I'm not going to sleep,” Bård said, a hint of obstinacy creeping through. “Toss me the remote, it's on the night stand,” he instructed and prepared to catch the black item. Vegard's aim was as accurate as ever, and the remote ended up on the floor. Bård shot him a glare as he bent down to pick it up.

“Sorry,” Vegard said softly. Bård was shocked to see the shimmer of unshed tears in his eyes, reflecting the low light in the room.

“What's wrong?” Bård asked, baffled by the sudden emotional reaction.

“Nothing, gotta pee,” Vegard said and dropped to his feet. He kept his head down as he rushed past the bed, and slammed the bathroom door behind him when he reached it. The sound of the lock engaging sounded loud and final.

Bård waited for what he considered long enough to take care of one's business or pull oneself together, whichever was occurring behind the closed door. He didn't bother picking up his crutches to limp the short distance to the other room, gritting his teeth against the cautionary jolt his ankle gave. He'd have to go easy on it for the rest of the evening to be able to hobble about on the plane on the following day.

“Vegard?” Bård asked and rapped on the door lightly with his knuckles. He didn't expect an answer, but almost immediately he heard the lock turn. Stepping in, he found Vegard sitting on the floor by the door, back against the wall. His cheeks were wet with tears.

“What's wrong? Don't shut me out, please,” Bård said with emphasis, using Vegard's words from earlier. He sat down next to his brother and waited.

“It's stupid,” Vegard started. Fresh tears overflowed and his voice distorted almost beyond coherence. “I should be sad about Hermod and all the shit that's happened, and you've had to go through so much and it's my fault and it's unfair, and they said it might be permanent and everything is going straight to hell and I'm so fucking selfish!”

Bård couldn't make out everything his brother said amidst the heaving breaths, but he heard enough. He reached his arm behind Vegard's back and pulled him closer. Leaning his head against his brother's, Bård pulled in a fortifying inhalation and willed his voice to emerge steady.

“You're not selfish,” Bård said. He wasn't sure if Vegard was listening, but he offered the words anyway. “It's not stupid to be upset.”

“Sorry,” Vegard sniffed and pulled away from his brother's side. Bård reached forwards to grab some toilet paper and handed over a couple of squares.

“It's fine,” Bård said and put his hand on Vegard's shoulder, hoping the action would convey what his words couldn't. “Do you want to talk? And don't say you'd rather watch TV.”

Vegard gave a quick chuckle at that. He wiped his cheeks and blew his nose, tossing the used paper into the open toilet bowl.

“But I would rather watch –,” Vegard started, but revealed he was kidding by grinning. Bård snorted and gently punched his brother on the shoulder. His smile dropped instantly. “I'm sorry. It really is stupid and I know I shouldn't be such a goddamn drama queen about it all.”

“Just tell me,” Bård pleaded. “Remember what we promised a year ago. No lies.”

“No lies,” Vegard agreed. He still needed a moment before he could get the next words out. “They said there's a chance I'll never regain the full use of my hand. I know I should be happy that we're both alive and well, and fuck, what happened to Hermod is so much worse and that's... that's so fucked up and all I'm thinking about is one stupid arm.”

Vegard was on the verge of tears again, breathing rapidly and shallowly. Bård ignored his own racing heart and reached for something to say. His brother was falling apart in front of him and he had nothing to offer. All reassurances would be bland and meaningless, mere mirages of a hypothetical future. He wasn't strong enough to make them real.

And yet, if he did nothing, he was sure Vegard would slip away. His brother hadn't spoken to him out of his own volition, choosing to hide rather than seek support from him. But he was talking now after surprisingly little incentive, and Bård had a feeling that if he betrayed that trust, Vegard would not open up again. He squelched his apprehension and took the leap.

“Guess it's lucky that you're right-handed then.”

“Bård?”

“We can deal with this. It's just an arm after all, your mind is as sharp as it ever was and there's nothing wrong with your voice. Your art doesn't come from your hands, it's everywhere else. Besides, you're a stubborn bastard, one doctor's opinion won't stop you, right?”

“I don't... I don't know.”

“Then I'll be certain for the both of us. You're going to conquer this, and if not, then what of it? We'll get you shoes with zippers on the sides and on you go.”

Bård had to avert his eyes from the pathetically grateful look Vegard gave him while blinking away tears. He was glad his brother still bought his bullshit. Faking confidence really was one of his better tricks.

“Now can we watch TV?” Vegard asked, smiling with wet, flushed cheeks.

Bård shook his head slowly, answering the smile but with caution. He couldn't judge whether the darkness had truly lifted or if his brother had only pushed it to the side for his benefit. Both options were equally terrifying.

Vegard made it to an upright position first and reached down to offer his good hand to his brother. Bård grabbed it and allowed Vegard to pull him to his feet, ready to ease immediately if it looked like the weight was too much for him. Vegard appeared fine, and Bård felt comfortable draping his arm across his shoulder and taking support as they relocated to the main room. It wasn't terribly late yet, but the sun had started setting already. In silent agreement, the brothers sat on the bed, backs against the wall, and pulled the duvet on their laps.

Bård handled the remote, afraid that the inconspicuous item might spark another emotional eruption. Vegard appeared calm, sitting and scratching his chin idly. Bård flipped through the channels until he settled on something that seemed harmless. He didn't think he could handle anything with action or murders in it, considering the recent events. Bård felt like he was starting to slip into the stunned melancholy again, but Vegard chose that moment to shift his position and settle closer to Bård, hips against his. Bård moved his eyes from the screen to his brother. Vegard shot him a covert look, snapping back to the television as soon as he met the blue eyes. Bård relaxed and scooter closer as well, feeling the warmth from his brother's compact body soak his side.

The evening progressed lazily. Neither brother had much interest in talking or doing anything, so they sat on the bed and let the television fill the room with sounds. It was only nearing ten when Vegard admitted he was too tired to keep his eyes open. Bård had been aware of his yawning for the last hour, supplementing it with his own. He reminded his brother to take his evening medication and prepared for bed.

Due to the lack of available twin rooms, the brothers would share the queen-sized bed. Bård didn't mind: he still sometimes felt nervous when sleeping alone in the dark, no matter how much he tried to convince himself it was pathetic, sad and illogical. The comfort of a living human by his side lulled him into a sufficient sense of security to fall asleep undisturbed. That it was his brother further quieted his anxiety.

In the still darkness of the black autumn night, a brown-haired young man reached his hand towards the sleeping figure lying by his side. No one was there to witness him intertwining his fingers with the slack ones on his left. With the touch grounding his frantic mind, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He was safe.


	6. Chapter 6

Bård woke up with a warm weight on his chest. Closer inspection revealed it to be his brother who was asleep and snuggled to his side. A simple nudge wasn't enough to get him to roll over, so Bård pushed on his bony shoulder until Vegard made a strangled sound and disappeared under the thick duvet. With an amused grunt, Bård crawled out of bed and limped to the bathroom, immediately missing the warmth.

Covering his cast in order to take a shower that would be wasted on a day of travelling was more arduous than Bård could be bothered with. He only brushed his teeth and fixed his hair before returning to the main room. Vegard was sitting on the edge of the bed, drinking from his bottle of tepid water. Bård dropped down next to him and visually surveyed the room to see if he had missed any personal belongings on the previous evening. Their luggage for the journey home would comprise of a small plastic bag full of dirty clothes and medication. Bård had considered throwing the used underwear and socks away, but his common sense and outraged brother wouldn't allow him to be so wasteful. Having nothing to accomplish before leaving, the brothers vacated the room and headed towards the reception to check out and start their journey home.

The first destination on Vegard's first full day of freedom was Aune's Bakery. Bård was eager to have breakfast that wasn't the hospital cafeteria fare he was intimately familiar with, but he still made fun of his brother for lusting after fresh cheesecake. They had two hours to kill before Vegard's neuroses would force them to go to the airport to wait for another two hours before their flight, offering the perfect opportunity for a leisurely meal.

Just as the brothers were about to enter the small shop, the door slammed open with violent force in front of them. Bård made an awkward leap backwards to avoid being hit with the solid wood, only to collide against his brother. Vegard grunted with the impact but caught himself and his brother before falling. Anger roused, Bård looked up to see a face he recognised.

“Oh, sorry Bård!” Nina exclaimed and grabbed the younger man's arm, moving too late to be of aid in steadying him, but allowing her hand to linger regardless. “Didn't see you there.”

“Don't worry, we should've been more careful,” Bård replied. His irritation dissipated instantly when faced with the earnest gaze of the tall woman. He felt Vegard take a step back and to the side.

“Guess you two haven't officially met yet,” Bård said and grinned, nudging his brother to prompt him to come to the front.

“Good to see you on your feet,” Nina said and smiled. Only then did Bård realise that she had a scratch on her cheek, surrounded by slightly swollen, reddened skin.

“What happened to your face?” he asked before Vegard managed to stammer out anything resembling coherent speech.

“Cobblestones,” Nina said and laughed. “They're a terrible combination with high heels. You should see my knees, haven't had them this skinned since I was a kid.”

She was clad in black trousers that day, hiding her legs for the first time that Bård could recall. He told her about their travel plans and timetable. The disappointment on Nina's face was plain to read.

“I'm glad you can go home. Both of you,” she said meaningfully and slid her eyes from one brother to the other. She seemed to be searching for something, her eyebrows scrunched, appearing alert.

“Thank you. I hope your cousin will be back on his feet soon too.” Bård tried to inject meaning into his words, driving them home with a direct look into Nina's blue eyes. She dodged the gaze and smiled wistfully.

“Life is what it is,” she finally sighed and shrugged, rustling the material of her jacket with the movement. Bård gripped both of his crutches in one hand to free his other arm to reach towards Nina. She stepped into the awkward hug and held on, squeezing so hard Bård's ribs gave a faint protest. Their goodbyes were said during the prolonged contact while Vegard waited a couple of steps away, not wanting to intrude on something he didn't understand. Eventually Nina let go and wished the brothers a good journey home. After she was gone from sight, Vegard turned to Bård with a question on his lips. The younger brother promised to explain once they were inside and settled.

“That was Nina, her cousin was in the room next to yours at the ICU. Still is, and things aren't looking good for him,” Bård said after they were seated with fully loaded sandwiches in front of them. The bakery shop was quiet in the morning, only Selma stood behind the counter. Bård kept his voice low in case her tasks weren't distracting enough to keep her from eavesdropping.

“Did you sleep with her?” Vegard asked and nibbled on a leaf of lettuce hanging over the side of his sandwich. Bård nearly spat his tea out.

“No! What the hell!”

“You wanted to,” Vegard said. He took a proper bite and munched on it.

“That's irrelevant,” Bård mumbled, hiding behind his breakfast. Vegard snorted.

“All the times you've mocked me for having mature admirers,” the older brother said and left the sentence hanging.

“Oh, shut up. She's been someone to talk to, being in the same position as me. Well almost the same. Similar, more like it. She gets what it's like to –“

“Be abandoned?” Vegard interjected, the earlier look of playfulness gone. He put his sandwich down and lowered his gaze to his lap.

“I haven't been alone,” Bård started cautiously. He discarded his breakfast too and looked at Vegard's tilted head. He could see the uneven partition in the middle of the dark wavy hair, and the unkempt eyebrows drawn heavily to frame a deep frown. The rest of the face was hidden from his view.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so useless and leave you to manage on your own,” Vegard told the tablecloth, very quietly.

“Come on. It's not like you had a choice. And mamma was here for a long while, and Nina's still around. I'm not a little kid anymore, I don't need constant supervision.”

“I should've been there for you,” Vegard insisted. His right hand was clenched into a fist, shaking minutely. Bård reached across the table and hemmed the smaller hand within his fingers.

“You were,” Bård whispered. His tea had gone cold, but he took a fortifying sip anyway, grimacing at the taste. “You never left me. The choice to take those steps was mine.”

“What're you talking about?” Vegard asked, the confusion plain on his face. He wasn't fishing for an explanation for the sole purpose of hearing his brother verbalise his thoughts: he genuinely didn't understand. Bård was tempted to brush the question off and change the subject. The well-lit bakery shop wasn't the right place to have a conversation of this depth. He plunged into it regardless.

“Do you remember what happened in the forest? The last stretch of the journey?”

“I'm not really sure. I remember the rock with the dead trees.” Vegard paused to swallow. Bård felt a shiver run down his back as the words pulled the memories back to the surface. He struggled to not see the darkening sky again, or the face he wanted to forget. Concentrating on what Vegard was saying required an effort, but he forcibly pushed the expanse of blue away and anchored himself to the present and the familiar voice.

“After that everything is kinda blurry,” Vegard continued. He wouldn't meet Bård's eyes, staring at his cup of juice instead. Bård wanted to ask him if he saw something in the bright orange depths, but he recognised the impulse as his own cowardice making him want to hedge.

“Well, the concise version is that we walked until we physically couldn't anymore. Then I left you.” Bård cringed, waiting for an explosion of hurt at his betrayal. He wasn't brave enough to look at his brother's face, fearing what he would find etched into the lines around his mouth.

“Yet here we are,” Vegard finally said, sounding unaffected. A slight flush started rising on Bård's cheeks.

“That's it? I abandon you when you're defenceless and probably dying, in the middle of the fucking wilderness at night, and that's all you have to say?” Bård's incredulity dripped from each syllable like venom, coating his words and turning his utterance into a hiss.

“What else would I say? That you should've lain down next to me and died? That's the dumbest thing I've heard.”

“And you would've done the same? Just stepped over my cooling corpse, glad to be rid of the burden weighing you down?”

“I would've carried you until I couldn't move anymore.” Vegard's voice was no longer restrained. The woman behind the counter raised her eyebrows at the brothers disapprovingly, but remained where she was, working on the computer and pretending that she wasn't taking in every word.

“Then why do you expect me to feel differently?” Bård asked, clenching his hands into fists. His volume had climbed as well and he tried to control it, restraining himself through the physical action.

“Because you're younger. You have to survive.”

“And you don't matter? Do you honestly think I could live with myself if I sacrificed you to ensure my own survival? Had you died before they got you out of that forest, that would've been on me. I'd be in that position right now, knowing I left you there. I fucking left you behind!” Tears were stinging in Bård's eyes and his throat hurt. He blinked and sniffed, attempting to subdue the message of weakness his body was trying to send without his permission. Even Vegard wouldn't be dense enough to miss how close to crumbling he was getting.

“We'd both be dead now if you hadn't kept going and you know it. What sort of fucked up logic is that, lie down and die? Is that what you want? To just give up because you're too sentimental to continue?”

“Shut up!” Bård snapped and wiped his eyes on his sleeves.

“Besides, I'm the one who failed,” Vegard mumbled, all fire gone in an instant. His shoulders slouched and he picked up a stray crumb to roll between his fingers. “I couldn't get us out. I just... I wasn't strong enough. You had the guts to continue alone.”

“You did more than should be possible. You carried me when my strength failed,” Bård said after blowing his nose and wiping his cheeks. The tears had stopped, but his voice was still shaky. “You don't remember?”

“I have these flashes of lucidity, but it's all blended together and I don't know what's real and what order things came in.”

“Maybe it's for the best,” Bård muttered. Vegard had spent the entire night alone. He wouldn't have known where his brother was or what was happening. He would've been scared and confused, and too weak to do anything to help himself. It was a small mercy that those hours were lost forever: once suffered and never revisited.

The brothers continued their breakfast in silence. Neither had much appetite but the need to fuel their healing bodies made them finish the sandwiches. Vegard didn't ask for the slice of cheesecake he had been lusting after, standing up to go to the door instead after the last crumb was gone. Bård paid and asked the woman behind the counter to call a taxi for them. She agreed grudgingly and the brothers moved outside to wait.

The wind was howling in earnest that morning. The two shivering men pressed closer against each other, not talking or gesticulating, but exuding a companionable quality to their proximity anyway. They stood with their hair and hoodie strings whipping about their squinted faces, and the city lived on around them: commuters were rushing to work and stores were opening their doors. Some walked with determination hardening their countenances, some without a care in the world. An occasional seagull or crow would streak across the sky, splitting the crisp air with its outstretched wings and melancholy cries. The sun was climbing behind the cloud cover, a soft golden glow the only hint of its position. The fog horn of a large ship leaving the harbour further to the south coincided with their taxi arriving, as if alerting both brothers to emerge out of their thoughts and snap back to reality.

Bård observed his brother as they started nearing the airport. Vegard's interest was evidently roused: he turned his head swiftly from side to side in order to take in the fenced area. The airport was located on the largest uniformly flat piece of land on the small island. Vegard's eyes were glued to the runways as the taxi drove towards the white terminal building where they'd go through the boarding process. Bård was more drawn to the mountains framing the view, but he threw a glance at a small plane ascending from the field, and at his brother who followed its path intently.

Relief made Bård lower his lids and hide the sky from his sight, turning his senses inwards. There was still fire in Vegard. Even if it burned low at times, the spark almost too dim to see, it remained within him. Had his brother been indifferent to his life-long passion of airports and flying, Bård would've given up as well. The taxi hit a sudden bump in the road and Bård's eyes flew open. They were nearing their destination. Time to take charge again.

Bård collected his crutches and paid the driver, hoping it would be the last time he'd have to utilise their mother's card. Even though he'd pay it all back, living out of someone else's pocket still chipped away at his sense of independence at a time when he desperately needed to re-establish his status as a capable individual. Living with his parents again would be a strange experience, but one born out of necessity. Reaching his own limits worried him little; failing to measure up to the responsibility he had assumed terrified him. For that alone he would endure the return to their parents' care.

Vegard grabbed their bag of belongings and nimbly exited the car. Bård needed longer to reach a stable standing position on the uneven gravel. He chose to ignore the impatient huff he heard from the front seat as he leaned on the silver door for support. Vegard came around the vehicle and at one time Bård would've feared he'd say something rude to the driver. Now the older brother stood in silence, eyes fixed on the gleaming white wings of a medium-sized passenger plane, hugging the plastic bag with one arm. Outwardly he appeared unaware of what his brother was doing, but when Bård stumbled, a short but firm arm snaked around his back immediately, allowing him to find his balance safely.

“Optimal flying conditions?” Bård asked to break the silence. They were slowly making their way towards the entrance, shivering in the gusty wind.

“Not bad,” Vegard said and took a breath to elaborate, but Bård interrupted him before he could launch into a monologue about the relative humidity or the structure of the clouds or the lack of mist in the air.

“I'll bet you the window seat they'll put us in a tiny cart and ship us around like invalids the moment we check in,” Bård said while Vegard pulled the door open and held it for him.

“I'm not taking that bet. We'll follow the age-old tradition of rock-paper-scissors for the seat.” Vegard's tone left no room for argument. Bård hid his grin and stepped inside.

The widely smiling woman behind the counter didn't recognise them, even after studying their passports for identification. Bård was pleased at being allowed to stay under the cloak of obscurity, but felt an embarrassed flush rise on his cheeks when the woman asked if they needed any help boarding. Bård threw a questioning glance at Vegard, but he only shrugged and nodded at Bård, indicating that it was up to him. The younger brother politely declined. He could almost sense her judgement when he proceeded to mention that they had nothing to check in, her eyes homing in on their plastic bag like it was something dirty and disgusting. Which it largely was, Bård realised belatedly.

“Should've bought a satchel,” Bård muttered as they entered the queue for the safety check. Vegard came to stand closer, but Bård was too distracted by the masses of people bustling around them to evaluate whether it was to seek comfort or to give it. A small group of teenagers released occasional shrieks of laughter in front of the brothers in the queue. Bård took a step closer to Vegard, barely aware of doing so. The kids going through the inspection were talking too loudly, tossing lewd comments to each other when one was subjected to a pat-down, and Bård felt the mass compressing against him. Too many sounds and sights and smells assaulted him, drowning him in a cacophony of perfumed sweat.

Bård needed to get out. As hostile as the sky seemed to him, he would've preferred the remote blue to the low ceiling. He longed for fresh air and for a respite from the heated bodies smashing against his boundaries. Every head of light hair turned towards him with utterly empty stares, sucking his reason to the vacant depths of their dead eyes. Bård's breath came quicker and he clenched his fingers around the handles of his crutches with desperate force. He closed his eyes, trying to will himself to calm down, to not cause a scene and delay their homecoming.

“Bård?” Vegard whispered by his side. Bård acknowledged him with a low sound that wavered audibly. Blood rushed in his ears, mixing with the noise filling the room, underlining everything with a sickeningly organic hum. Vegard was talking but the words meant nothing to Bård, slipping by him in an avalanche of futility. He needed to endure, to keep his composure, to appear impassive. He had to become a rock.

A warm hand against Bård's cheek brought an abrupt halt to everything: the sounds quieted, the movements ceased, even his hammering heart seemed to stop. The pause lasted only a fraction of a second, but once the world slammed back into motion, Bård was in control. The noise wasn't a wall pressing in on him, it was a current that he could slip into and swim along with. The olfactory assault could only reach his outer layers, it could not penetrate beneath his skin. The touch on his face wasn't restricting, it was an ally, spreading warmth and support, filling the hollowness under the surface.

“Bård?” Vegard insisted, giving his brother the line he could follow to find his centre again.

“I'm here,” Bård said and adjusted his grip on the crutches, loosening his cramping fingers. “I'm okay.”

“It's our turn next,” Vegard said quietly. He stepped to the scanning machine and placed their scant belongings on the belt. Bård followed him and fluttered through the motions of the security check in a haze of unreality. He was ashamed and astounded at how quickly he had gone to nearly freaking out over nothing, and had needed his brother to pull him out of the panicked state. Vegard seemed wary but otherwise unshaken by the busy setting, perhaps protected by his passion for all things aviation. Bård fought off a twinge of envy.

Vegard preceded his brother to the end of the conveyor where they reclaimed their items. A member of the personnel nodded at Bård and asked him if he needed help with his crutches. Still flustered from his earlier loss of control, Bård declined the offer more harshly than was called for. His regret was immediate, but the staff member had already moved on to observing the next passenger in line. Bård wondered where the sudden surge of aggressive insistence on his capabilities came from. He didn't consider himself a proud person, one who would turn down offers of help on principle even when truly needed. But having unneeded assistance pushed on him now – after he'd coped by himself for such a long time and managed to somehow keep his brother above the surface as well – severely rubbed him the wrong way. Bård had no use for well-meaning hands that were sincere but impotent. Nothing could wipe away the past and erase the experience and its repercussions, and all else was pointless.

The brothers found a scarcely populated corner with a row of seats and settled in for the wait. Vegard was clutching their belongings in his lap while Bård balanced his crutches on the chair next to him, for practical purposes and to message to others to give them a wide berth. They had over an hour to kill before they could expect the boarding to begin, so Bård did what he usually did when faced with boredom: he closed his eyes. The chair wasn't as uncomfortable as it looked and Bård relaxed against the padding. His mind started sinking away from the noise around him, abandoning reality in favour of the darkness where all he saw was swiftly moving water, not the judgemental faces of strangers. He felt Vegard shift closer to him just before he submerged fully.

When the time came to board the plane an hour and a half later, the brothers had little trouble with the transition. Bård was athletic and nimble enough to easily navigate the tall steps to the small aircraft with his crutches, not slowing down the queue of impatient passengers behind him. Vegard slipped into the window seat, giving Bård room to stretch his leg to the aisle once people were in their places and not moving around. The arrangement suited the younger brother well, especially when he noticed how tightly Vegard was clutching the bag in his lap and how intently he was staring out through the circular window, flinching whenever someone spoke too loud or lingered too long by their row. Bård felt almost redeemed from his earlier moment of need by acting as the barrier between his brother and the rest of the plane.

“This is it,” Bård said when they felt the intoxicating rush of acceleration. The plane shuddered a bit as its wheels left the ground and transferred the bearing duty to the wings. Although he could see the windows on both sides of the aisle from his seat, Bård preferred to keep his eyes straight ahead, ignoring the disappearing tips of the mountains and increasing cloud coverage.

“Home,” he heard Vegard say, seemingly without meaning to. The older brother was leaning against the window, forehead pressed on the thick double panes, leaving a greasy smudge on the transparent surface. There wasn't much to see outside: the sun was only a soft glow on the other side of the plane and the clouds hid whatever was beneath them.

“You know, if I was a sentimental person, this is where I'd do something lame like start celebrating our survival,” Bård said casually with his head leaned back against the paper-covered seat. He heard Vegard snort by his side.

“Like full-on hands in the air, shouting and pumping your fist kind of jubilation?” the older brother asked, mirth crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“Hell yes! I'd even shoot confetti out of my ass!” Bård broke into laughter, heedless of the people within hearing range giving him disapproving looks.

Vegard joined in, his high-pitched giggling earning him murderous glares that Bård registered but chose to ignore. He hadn't heard his brother laugh as genuinely in a long time. The relief of going home was probably what made them giddy, but if all it took to have his brother express that joy was an absurd mental image, Bård was prepared to pile on.

“Run around naked with two thumbs up in the air!”

As soon as the words left Bård's mouth, the grin on Vegard's face started fading. He kept an imitation up with his lips, but the sparkle died behind his eyes. Not long after, he turned towards the window again, shoulders pulled in, right hand squeezing the bag on his lap with a white-knuckled grip.

“It doesn't matter,” Bård said quietly, eyes trained on the wall of dark curls that hid his brother's face from his view. “Two thumbs or one, it doesn't matter.”

“Easy for you to say,” Vegard muttered. His tone didn't hold overt anger, but the words cut Bård so strongly he felt a stabbing in his stomach. His ankle was throbbing too, a steady thump that seemed to worsen the higher they climbed, but it didn't even compare with the crushing pain his brother's defeated posture awakened.

“Sorry,” Bård said, at a loss for anything else to offer.

“Don't,” Vegard forced out before clamping his mouth shut and turning further towards the window. Bård lifted his hand and allowed it to hover near his brother's shoulder, but lowered it back to his lap after a while without making contact.

The steady sound of the plane's engines lulled Bård into a state that wasn't comfortable but it was numb. His joy at going home was diluted by his brother's bleak mood. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep but knowing the refuge would be denied to him. The estimated duration of the flight wasn't be long, masking the true length of it. Bård thought back to the trip up north in Vegard's red Honda. The car was no more and the passengers had changed. They were returning home, but Bård knew they had left a part of themselves in the great wild forest. Retracing the distance they had travelled could not restore what the endless green and a pair of twisted blue had taken from them.

“I'm sorry,” Vegard said suddenly, dragging Bård back to full awareness. The younger brother opened his eyes and blinked in the sudden blaze of gold reflected on the clouds outside the window.

“What for?” Bård asked, still trying to orient himself back to reality, away from the memories.

“I'm not a complete wreck,” Vegard said, turning his eyes to his brother. “You're right, I'm overreacting. We're alive and we're going home, that's what matters, right?”

“Ri-right.” Bård looked at the slightly scrunched brows above the brown eyes. The raw need radiating off his brother made the fine hairs on Bård's neck stand. He wasn't sure how Vegard had gotten the impression that he thought so little of him. Bård wanted to message with no uncertainty that he would be there for his brother, no matter what, but the words wouldn't come out. He lifted his left hand from his lap and eased it on Vegard's right one that sat on the armrest between them. The sunlight intensified as the plane made a steering manoeuvre and it seemed to set Vegard's hair on fire, turning him into an angelic figure with sadness behind his eyes. Bård clutched his hand tighter.

“We're alive and we're going home, together.”

*****

The large couch in the living room became Bård's domain. Navigating the steep stairs to the second floor where his and Vegard's old rooms were was not impossible, but hanging onto the handrail and carefully placing a crutch on the narrow wooden steps took time and effort, more than Bård could be bothered with on a daily basis. The house also had only one bathroom that was located on the ground floor, further strengthening Bård's decision to conquer the dark green sofa bed for himself. Vegard retreated to his old room for the nights, but spent most of the day downstairs with Bård. Their parents were away during office hours, but the evenings were wholesome, healing family time.

A week passed and things fell into easy routine: lazy mornings, lunch cooked together, occasional trips to physical therapy or to a grocery store, dinner as a family and evenings spent together. On the third day after their arrival, the brothers visited their respective apartments to grab some clothes and other necessities the modern age called for. Vegard seemed particularly hesitant to return to their parents' house after the brief sojourn in his own flat, but they had agreed to spend a couple of weeks in their childhood home and they'd keep their word. Bård didn't mind the shameless pampering by their parents, but he did feel the irresistible pull of his normal, independent life. Torn by his desire to soak in his family's presence and the urge to move forwards from the doldrums his life had fallen into, Bård redirected his attention to reading about major world events he had missed and getting re-acquainted with his laptop. The nature around them was preparing for the long sleep of winter, but Bård was ready to emerge from his cocoon and face the cruel winds head-on, with his brother in tow.

By his not insignificant powers of persuasion, Bård managed to get Vegard to help him work on the show that was entirely theoretical at the time, but which continued to expand and solidify in Bård's mind, becoming their future. Despite his reluctance, in the hours spent tossing ideas around and playing with increasingly unlikely scenarios, Vegard could lose himself and let his imagination run free, having no limitations created by reality or capability. Within the confines of their show, they were gods.

“It needs to be seven. Six is not repetitive enough, but eight is too many,” Bård said heatedly, emphasising his point by holding up four fingers.

“Six is too many, it'll get boring before it gets funny,” Vegard retorted and made a cutting motion with his spoon. He had a bowl of chocolate ice cream on his lap, the condensation slowly soaking into the grey material of his sweat pants. He barely noticed the moisture, too intent on getting his point across to his brother who was lounging on the sofa.

“Three is not enough, the golden rule won't work here.” Bård had his laptop poised on the coffee table with something that could become a script with further polishing open in a simple text file. There were no images or diagrams, but in his mind he saw it all exactly the way it would unfold on screen. The words would transform into actions and set pieces, showing him the tangible form of his ideas. Or they would, as soon as he could guide his brother into seeing what he saw without losing his vision to his feeble arguments.

“We don't want people to get bored and switch the channel before we get to the punchline,” Vegard said through a mouthful of half-frozen dairy product.

“What time slot do you think it'll be on?” Bård suddenly asked, knowingly throwing his brother off balance.

“I uh... I haven't thought about that,” Vegard replied after swallowing. He lowered his eyes to the yellow earthenware bowl in his lap and stabbed the spoon into the largest remaining piece.

“But you have thought about the viewers?” Bård prompted.

“Yeah. I have... yeah,” Vegard fell silent without elaborating further.

“Are you ready to contact the reps and say we'll do the show? They've been surprisingly flexible with us.” Bård knew their deal was hanging by a thread at the moment. A hiatus had been negotiated for them, but Bård couldn't trust their future on such a fickle foundation.

“I know. Strangely so. But... I just... you know,” Vegard struggled to get the words out. He lifted his eyes to meet Bård's, as if trying to push the chaos out from inside his head for his brother to analyse and organise for him.

“Tell me,” Bård said, giving the command as gently as he could. As well as he knew his brother, as close as their thoughts often ran, he couldn't actually read his mind. After all they'd been through, both together and individually, there were moments when he felt like their special connection had been weakened beyond repair. Sometimes he mourned the loss, sometimes he was relieved for the distancing effect. Vegard had no business knowing the darkest corners of Bård's mind where he hid the unkindest, most shameful thoughts that struck him during the worst days.

“I'm not ready. Can we leave it at that?” The plea was plain in Vegard's tone. Bård hated himself for ignoring it.

“You know their patience will run out. If we don't give them the confirmation soon, we're losing this for good. Do you really want to give up that easily? Let that son of a bitch win?”

“It's not about winning. We lost already,” Vegard said and stood up, accompanied by a clink of the metal spoon hitting the rim of his bowl.

Bård hesitated for a moment, hand hovering over his crutches that were leaning against the side of the couch. He heard Vegard abandon his dish in the kitchen sink and go upstairs, stepping lightly but rapidly on the old wooden planks. Bård withdrew his hand and settled it back over the keyboard. He ran his fingers across the small squares, listening to the soft clatter of the plastic. He didn't know why he was pressing his brother so hard. If the present opportunity slipped through their fingers, there would probably be a new one somewhere down the line. He wasn't even certain if _he_ was ready for the engagement yet.

Maybe it was about winning after all, about not giving up, about having the tenacity to continue with their lives. Bård wanted to climb higher, get bigger, shine brighter. And he wanted his brother to join him. He hadn't gone a day in his life where he would've wanted all the glory to himself, it was always shared. Being part of a duo validated Bård in a way that standing alone never could. He was nothing without the contrast and emphasis brought by his second half.

Bård grabbed a single crutch and limped to the stairs. With determination powering his movements, he hung onto the handrail and pulled himself up, using three limbs effectively and the bad leg sparingly. He was sure he made enough noise clambering up that his presence wouldn't startle his brother when he finally reached the top. The landing at the end of the stairs was void of furniture. It was a small space with wooden walls and no windows, softened only by a thick cream-coloured rug that had gone threadbare over the years. Bård crossed the space slowly, more out of breath after the short climb than he wanted to admit. He limped to stand beside Vegard's open door, keeping his eyes down, and cleared his throat meaningfully. A long silence followed. Bård was almost convinced that his brother was either playing dumb or dismissing him on purpose when he heard the quiet bid to enter.

“I'm sorry,” Bård said as soon as he stepped in. He reached Vegard's bed and lowered himself on the pristine dark blue day cover, resisting the urge to grunt.

“Don't apologise,” Vegard said. He was sitting on the floor between his desk and an over-laden bookshelf, back against the wall and hugging a large white pillow with his good arm. Bård could only make out his raised knees and a tuft of curls.

“I mean it, don't,” Vegard warned just as Bård opened his mouth to repeat his apology. He snapped it shut and inhaled slowly.

“Are you comfortable there?” Bård asked instead. His brother was sheltered by sturdy wood on three sides and by the sizeable pillow on the front. Bård's insides twisted at seeing the defensiveness of the position. That Vegard felt like he needed those fortifications when he was alone in his room worried him. And Bård didn't know how to help.

“What do you want?” Vegard asked, turning to anger, still keeping his face hidden.

“I want to not be a complete jerk,” Bård replied. “I'm sorry I'm pushing you so hard. I shouldn't do that.” Bård's voice sounded mechanical and lifeless to his own ears. His sincerity often came through a filter of humour or impassiveness, but he hoped Vegard would understand what he was trying to convey regardless. Once upon a time his brother could read his lack of overt emotion like music.

“Don't say that,” Vegard whispered. His arm around the pillow tightened, creating deeper creases in the soft fabric. He gave no other visible reaction.

“Could you come to the bed? I can't hear you from over there and my ankle's too fucked up to let me sit on the floor,” Bård suggested, leaving out how sick it made him to see his brother huddling in his artificial shelter.

Vegard nodded after a moment and uncoiled himself. His footsteps made no sound as he crossed the room and deftly sat on the cover next to Bård, lifting his knees against his chest again but laying the pillow by his side. It was still within an arm's reach, but for now he abandoned the false comfort offered by it. Bård felt a small stirring of hope and scooted a little bit closer to his brother.

“Listen, I'm worried about you,” Bård started, opting for the direct approach. He quieted as Vegard started shaking his head.

“No,” was all the older brother said.

“No?”

“I can't handle that,” Vegard explained. His dark eyes had a deeper sheen in them, hinting at tears that would fall at the smallest provocation. “You shouldn't have to worry so much about me. I know I should be over this by now. You're right, I'm over-reacting and I should just stop, it's my part to worry about you and now it's all fucked up and –“

“Woah, hey, I've never said you're over-reacting! I'm only pushing you because I don't want you to give up. I'm not trying to belittle you or invalidate your experience. It's just, we have so much more to reach, this can't be where it ends. Don't you have dreams anymore?” Bård asked, throat burning with the emotions he was trying to suppress in order to get his message out before his voice failed him.

“I do! But just... can't we wait a little bit longer? No, that's stupid. I mean,” Vegard flailed for the words, seeking Bård's eyes with his own, the desperation shining through. “I'm so fucking lost.”

“Me too,” Bård admitted. “I'm trying to pull you with me but I have no idea where I'm heading. Maybe you're the sensible one and I'm about to push us both over the edge of a cliff.”

The brothers were instantly thrown back to the rock with the two dead trees. The wind was howling around them and the sun continued its merciless descent, reflected in stunned eyes and on the windows in Vegard's childhood room. Delicate white lace curtains cast irregular shapes on the opposite wall as the dying light filtered through its patterns. They couldn't smell the mustiness of the poorly ventilated room: the scent of fresh pines was in their noses, rising above the damp green moss at their feet.

“You didn't let me fall,” Vegard said, eyes wide, looking past Bård and into the darkening sky.

“I'll never let you fall,” Bård replied, gaze fixed on his brother's face, seeing each scratch and smear of mud as they had been on that evening. When Vegard focused his eyes on Bård, the younger brother flinched.

Mirrors gave Bård no mercy, but the reflection in the brown depths showed him something beautiful instead of the face of one who had failed. Vegard had gambled everything on that one reckless, heroic move on the rock. Bård now saw the love that had powered his brother's actions, the love that still made him face each day that threw guilt and fear in his path, and gave him strength to push through. He realised his error in not wanting to share his deepest pain with his brother. It was where their connection waited, ready to flow freely again if he only allowed his defences to let it seep through.

“Shit, Vegard, I didn't realise,” Bård said, for once not in control of his obedient tongue, vocalising his thoughts as they entered his mind. “I didn't let you fall, but I left you behind. I left you.”

Bård's words deteriorated into sobs as he forcefully wrenched the dam down. He had waited almost too long but the water hadn't evaporated. All he needed was sitting in that stagnant pool, ready to merge with the slower trickle that was his brother. He plunged in head first and continued talking brokenly.

“Sometimes I want to die. When I can't sleep, when I'm too scared to get out of bed, when I see his face everywhere, I just want to cease to exist. And I can't lean on you, I can't take the support you've always given me, and it's making me more lonely than I have ever felt before. It's not your fault, don't apologise. We're both in this shit. This wasn't done to just me, it was done to us. I've been pushing you away and not even realising it. And for that, I'm truly sorry.”

Bård lowered his gaze, not sure what to expect. His breath was coming in short pants, the tears streaming in a cascade he couldn't stop. His back felt exposed, as if everything he had revealed was concentrated on that part of his body, making the skin tingle.

The older brother sat motionless. Bård waited with his heart torn open, but no words were forthcoming. Just as he thought he had gone too far, had brought too much out into the open, he felt warm fingers reach for his. With slow, jerky motions, Bård opened his fist and let his brother take his hand, like he hadn't in years.

“Me too,” the words came quietly. “Sometimes I wish you had let me fall. And then I hate myself for nearly giving up. But I'm still here. Lean on me, I need that. I'm useless without you. I've failed you miserably if you think you can no longer depend on me, if you think me too frail to keep you afloat. I need you to soar, to go high where I can watch you. I want to fly by your side, but the sky is yours.”

In the darkening room, two brothers reached for each other and held on with enough force to hurt. The taller one squeezed the dark-haired one with both arms, crying into the curls that nearly suffocated him, burying his face deeper and deeper. The shorter one clung on with one arm, the other held awkwardly to the side, nuzzling his face against the thin chest. Both were staining each other with their tears. Neither cared.

The sun reached the horizon and disappeared among orange clouds. A tall figure with blonde hair stood unnoticed behind an apple tree in the garden with a softly glowing cigarette in hand, watching as the last rays reflected on a window pane high on the second floor of an old wooden building.

*****

Bård placed his right foot gingerly on the floor, testing its ability to carry his weight. The cast had been removed earlier that day and instead of dancing a lively jig in celebration of being rid of the cumbersome thing, Bård was taking tentative steps between the living room and the kitchen, grinning wider the longer he stayed on his feet. Vegard was standing by the stove, stirring something brown in a low pot.

“You look like a hatchling stork,” Vegard idly told his sauce. His right hand never stopped its circular motion.

“You mean graceful and elegant,” Bård quipped from next to the couch where he was turning around for another trip across the connected rooms. Vegard snorted.

“Sit down before you break your leg again and chop those celeries,” the older brother commanded, emphasising his words with a wooden spoon.

Bård obediently sat by the long kitchen table where a cutting board, a short knife and a handful of already washed green stalks waited. He couldn't suppress a small grunt of relief when he took the weight off his leg. Vegard didn't comment, but the squaring of his shoulders indicated that he had heard.

“Why are you putting celery in your slop anyway, you know I don't like it,” Bård whined, but picked up the knife and started slicing the vegetables despite his protest.

“Because we're learning to like celery. Step one on our path to world domination,” Vegard said with such a convincing deadpan tone that Bård wasn't entirely sure he was joking.

“Do what you want, I'm still picking it out.”

The kitchen fell into silence as Bård concentrated on chopping the crunchy stalks into small pieces with no extra fingers added. Vegard kept stirring his sauce, occasionally adjusting the heat and pausing to watch the lazy bubbles that emerged after he ceased the motion. Bård stole quick glances at his brother, observing the posture hidden under the messy hair and the loose clothing. The sleeves of Vegard's green hoodie were pulled up, revealing the flexing tendons and muscles on his thin arm as he fiddled with his pot, and the white cast on his left arm, held to the side and slightly behind his back, fingers hanging limp. As he puttered around in the kitchen, Bård noted that his brother made no use of the arm, save for utilising it as a door stopper when he collected plates from a cupboard.

“Why does it smell like cigarettes in here?” Bård suddenly asked, the tip of his nose quivering as he inhaled deeply.

“Are you calling my sauce disgusting?” Vegard retorted. His tone was teetering between playful and defensive.

“Nah, I'm just smelling things,” Bård said and shook his head. Vegard gave him a look that challenged his sanity, and indicated the pot with his spoon. Bård picked up the cutting board and dumped the cut celery pieces into the gently bubbling sauce. As he stood in the draft of the vent, he could no longer catch the intruding odour.

“How long until it's done?” Bård asked. His recent efforts with physical therapy had left him with an ever increasing appetite. He told himself he was re-building his shrivelled muscles, not the circumference of his stomach.

“Long enough for you to set the table,” Vegard said and nodded towards the cutlery drawer. Bård no longer had the excuse of needing both hands for crutches while moving, so he turned to collect forks and knives for them. As was usual for early afternoons, the brothers were alone in the house. Vegard had been left in charge of feeding them while their parents had choir practice, and he took the duty seriously.

“So I have this new idea. It involves a taxi, a camera and some quick improvisation,” Bård said as he placed plates on the wooden table. He elaborated on his plans for the half-formed segment, managing to pique Vegard's interest and goad him into offering some modifications of his own. The older brother surprised them both when he suggested that he'd play the keyboard. Bård expected him to quickly withdraw the words, considering what his current level of manual dexterity was, but Vegard stood his ground. Bård's lips spread into a wide grin and he nodded eagerly. He was finally getting his brother to commit and to set goals for himself. In that moment, he didn't even care about the show: they were working together again and gazing to the future, all else faded to the background.

Lunch was swiftly over and the brothers relocated to the living room after clearing away the dishes. Bård opened his laptop and started jotting down the improvements on his idea, not wanting to forget a single suggestion made in their unexpected brainstorming session. His determination quenched all 'what ifs' and 'buts' in his mind, silencing the ever-present whispers that questioned his capability and motivation. They would make this show happen because it was in their future, it was what they did best. Bård's fingers danced across the keys, all focus on the text in front of him.

Vegard sat on the other end of the sofa and observed his brother typing furiously on the slim machine. His brows were furrowed in concentration as he leaned closer to the screen. Vegard could've tossed a stray apple from the coffee table at his brother and he wouldn't have even flinched. Text appeared and disappeared at a fast pace as Bård edited the document with the unreachable dreams they shared. Vegard raised his knees against his chest, creating a resting place for his left arm between his thighs and stomach. He poked at the numb tips of his fingers that were peeking out from the cast, cringing at the dull pain the light pressure induced deeper in his arm. He listened to his brother's typing, sinking further into himself with each new press of the plastic keys. All their plans were pointless.

“How do you spell 'cantaloupe'?” Bård asked and turned his head towards his brother from squinting at the screen.

“Huh?” Vegard asked, blinking in the waning late autumn light. His hunched position made him nearly disappear among the voluminous folds of his hoodie, leaving only his face and knees visible.

“Need to name that melon with the funny surface,” Bård explained and started typing slowly, testing each letter to see if it looked right.

Vegard's eyes sought the nearest window. The trees were already bare but snow showed no signs yet of appearing to hide the barren ground. With an audible crack of his neck, Vegard rotated back to facing his brother.

“It's Father's Day soon,” Vegard noted.

“Why is that relevant?” Bård's mouth twisted into an uncertain grin. He smiled through his confusion and tried to follow the path his brother's mind had taken. Once again, the chase proved futile.

“Just an observation.”

“Okay,” Bård agreed and waited for a moment to see if Vegard would continue. When there was nothing else forthcoming, he returned to his earlier train of thought. “So cantaloupe, I have this brilliant idea for a segment. You're going to love this one, but I have to get it written down first before I can explain. I think it has a C and probably a French kind of spelling...”

Bård sank so deep into concentration that he barely heard his brother stand up. The part of his mind that never relaxed fully and always stayed vigilant pulled him out of the trance at the sounds of movement. Bård lifted his eyes in time to meet his brother's as he rounded the sofa and headed towards the stairs. Bård's question was silent but clear.

“I'll go take a nap,” Vegard muttered and shuffled across the room, hugging himself.

“You okay?” Bård asked. He received an unconvincingly nonchalant wave of a hand in response, thrown over a stooped shoulder. Vegard disappeared behind the wall with his steady footsteps pounding on the stairs. Bård turned back to his writing, fingers poised over the keyboard to finish his thought.

When the ticking of the living room clock penetrated his awareness, Bård realised he hadn't typed a single word in several minutes. The sun had gone down and he was sitting in darkness, only the space in front of the laptop illuminated by a blueish glow. He stretched his neck and shoulders, trying to loosen the muscles that had been static for too long. A quick look in the corner of his screen told him it was getting late. Bård wondered when their parents would return but soon abandoned the questioning since he had no way of knowing. He probably had less than an hour to finish his segment outline. The urge to complete the task was strong, but he couldn't focus on the writing.

Silence reigned in the darkened house. The hallway lights were off, leaving Bård to grope around for the switch on the wall behind him. He cautiously put weight on his ankle, prepared for a twinge of pain that never came. His gait held no trace of a limp as he crossed the room and started ascending the stairs. When he reached the landing, his leg felt entirely normal. Mystified by the novel sensation, Bård walked slowly to stand behind Vegard's closed door and rapped gently against the lacquered wood.

“You sleeping?” he asked, keeping his voice reasonably low, but loud enough to carry through the barrier. “Can I come in?”

Vegard kept Bård waiting for his answer. Eventually a muted invitation to enter came and Bård pushed the door open. There were no lights on in the small room, but the glow from the hallway guided Bård's steps to the bed. Vegard was lying on top of the dark blue cover, curled into a small ball. Bård sat down next to him at the foot of the bed and scooted along the coarse fabric to lean his back against the wall. Words were superfluous encumbrances between them: Bård trusted his presence to offer the support he wanted to give.

A merciless November gale pounded against the old wooden house, making the corners creak as the timbers shifted. The promise of snow was in the air, chilling the last green stragglers into a crispy texture. This far from the lights of a major city, the stars were visible and vibrant. The best efforts of rural illumination couldn't overcome the power of distant suns. Their stubborn shine had been a source of consolation for Bård on many a sleepless night.

“Do you ever think about Hermod?” Bård asked when the silence became too comfortable and he was facing the threat of falling asleep. Vegard gave a vague grunt in reply, neither denying or confirming, but assuring that he was listening.

“I don't think they'll ever catch who did it. They'd have to have some leads by now, but I heard there's been no progress.” Bård scratched his knee and looked out through the window. A tree with no leaves rapped the slender tips of its branches against the glass, jerking in the gusty wind.

“Where'd you hear that?” Vegard asked. His voice sounded small and fragile, like he was teetering on the edge of something. Bård shifted to sit closer to him, brushing against his feet. Knowingly or not, Vegard pressed his toes against his brother's thigh, anchoring to the solid warmth.

“Mamma's network of spy nurses,” Bård replied. He saw Vegard's cheeks puff out in a smile.

“He let me be the pilot,” Vegard said. Bård needed a moment to follow the abrupt jump.

“Hermod?”

“Yeah. I remember playing with him at one of the family gatherings. We climbed a tree and found a branch that looked like a plane. I was the pilot and he was the cook. We went on grand adventures.”

“Was I too small to join?” Bård asked. He looked at Vegard's shoulders, slowly unfurling from the hunched position. His tight muscles seemed to be loosening as he dove deeper into the pleasant memories. Bård pushed his thigh closer, feeling responding pressure from Vegard's feet.

“I think you were kissing the neighbours' girl.” Brown eyes flashed in the darkness as Vegard shot a grin at his brother. Bård replied in kind.

“Priorities,” he said and raised a shaggy eyebrow. After a shared snicker, the brothers sobered again.

“It happened so fast,” Bård said. “He had no warning. I can't help but think about what he would've done differently if he'd known it was his last day. What would _I_ have done differently.”

“Probably nothing. How do you prepare for that anyway?”

“Say goodbye to the people who matter?” Bård suggested. The hair on his arms shot up in response to the memories he inadvertently wakened. He had tried to say goodbye to his brother in the forest when he thought they were dying. He was glad Vegard hadn't allowed him to go through with it. Such words were not something one was supposed to live with. Uttered only once, the parting sentiments were ethereal like mist and destined to dissipate just as quickly.

“Wouldn't you rather have one fun day with them, something to remember with a smile?” Vegard asked, earnest gaze skewering Bård.

“I don't know. I don't ever want to be in the position to answer that question.”

A loud bang from outside made both brothers startle visibly. The oppressing mood was broken and they laughed at their jumpiness. In the quiet semi-rural neighbourhood with a dense forest hugging the habitation, wildlife wandered freely into the urban areas, sometimes getting into things they shouldn't. Vegard had reported finding odd tracks beneath the windows when he took the trash out earlier that day, apparent in the patches of soft ground around the house at irregular intervals. He assumed they were made by a lame fox or a badger, sniffing at the garbage for easy pickings. The brothers dismissed the sounds and hoped their parents would clean up any messes left by the nocturnal visitors.

“You got physio tomorrow?” Vegard asked. He sat up to lean against the wall next to his brother, barely a hand's width away.

“No, I have a break from them criticising my gait. Wanna do something?”

“Can you handle a walk yet?” Vegard's eyes weren't on his brother. He stared at the opposite wall, asking almost shyly. Bård perked up when he recognised the unusual hesitation. Vegard wouldn't hedge without a reason. That he had done so gave his seemingly innocuous words ominous weight. The deep connection Bård was yearning to strengthen dangled at his fingertips again. He chose his words carefully, not wanting to seem too eager lest he scared his brother into backing off.

“I can bring the crutches, just in case. The exercise will be good for us,” Bård said with a suitably flippant tone and poked his stomach. The soft flesh didn't yield much.

“Enough sitting around,” Vegard agreed. His spirits seemed to rise with the promise, and the heavy atmosphere in the room eased. Bård was ready to let all morbid subjects rest for the day. Death had come too close to his home too many times already, it was time to focus on small practicalities and forget how lucky they were.

“Let's hope the clouds will behave themselves tomorrow, I've no interest in dodging mud puddles and – did you hear that?” A sudden noise from outside made Bård lose track of his sentence. “Sounded like breaking glass.”

“Maybe a cat knocked over a bottle,” Vegard suggested.

“It wouldn't be that loud. And it sounded close,” Bård said and stood up. He limped across the worn hardwood floor to the window, leg stiff from the short period of inactivity. As he took more steps, the ankle limbered up, accepting the movement without protest. “Too dark to see anything really. But nothing's moving at least.”

“Probably just animals,” Vegard said. He joined his brother by the window and peered out through the rain-stained glass, bringing his head close enough to Bård's to tickle the younger brother with his wavy curls. “Odd circumstance for mist.”

Before Vegard could analyse the consistency of the wispy tendrils below them, they realised a scent had been insidiously infiltrating their nostrils, gradually building up until they could no longer ignore it.

“I think I smell smo-” Bård started but was cut off by the fire alarms blaring into life.

The brothers looked at each other. Suddenly the source of the shattering sound was too obvious: the downstairs windows. Following a hasty shared nod, Vegard rushed ahead to wrench the door open and started running towards the stairs, Bård right at his heels, limping only a little. Even before they saw anything, they knew the way down would be cut off. Dark smoke was billowing up along the funnel created by the wooden steps and the narrow walls, filling the upper half of the house at an alarming rate. The brothers started coughing as soon as the thick of it reached them.

“It's halfway up the stairs!” Vegard shouted with an edge of fear in his unsteady voice.

Bård leaned his head as low as he could and peered through the smoke and orange fire. His eyes were watering and his lungs were burning, but he kept the position long enough to see movement in the living room. Between two flickering spires of flame, he saw a thin sliver of the space between the kitchen wall and the large couch. Moving with determination, a slender person dressed in tight-fitting black crossed the area, a large metal canister in hands. Bård swallowed a scream when understanding dawned.

The person had long blonde hair.

And was clearly female.

“Nina,” Bård whispered in astonished horror. Vegard was frantically tugging his hand, trying to get him to back off from the quickly approaching inferno. Bård pulled his arm free, needing another moment to follow his wave of realisation. A hiker who had been in an accident on the same day they had been admitted to the hospital. A hiker who had been in the room next to them. The hair colour, the shape of the eyes, the strong jaw. The body they never turned to look at. “Oh my fucking god!”

“Bård, come here! You'll suffocate!” Vegard shouted, but to Bård he sounded distant and muffled and easy to ignore.

“Jesus Christ, her injured cousin is Anders,” Bård said to himself, trembling jerkily.

“What?” Vegard asked. His motions ceased and he coughed a couple of times, watery eyes struggling to focus on his brother. “What're you saying?”

“This is her. She's trying to finish what he started.” Bård felt ill. When Vegard grabbed his hand and pulled, this time he followed without resistance. The brothers retreated back to Vegard's room and closed the door. There was nowhere else to go with the stairs having been eliminated as an escape route and Bård's old room having nothing but bare rock beneath it. But outside Vegard's room, a sturdy maple tree towered all the way to the top of the roof, spreading its branches against the side of the house on its way up. It grew on a bed of moss and grass with the occasional tussock of heather breaking the monotony of green.

Bård wasn't sure if his brother was purposefully ignoring his words or if he had never even registered them, but he saw the fierce determination in his squared shoulders and clenched jaws. Following his example, Bård battled to push the revelation from his mind and focused on their predicament. They had to first get to safety before the house collapsed from under them, then he could freak out over hugging a relative of the monster that had nearly killed them.

“Bård! Are you listening?” Vegard shouted between bouts of coughing. His right hand was pressed against the glass of the window, fingers trembling visibly.

“Yeah,” Bård started saying but only managed to get a hoarse squeak out. He cleared his throat and repeated the acknowledgement with a stronger voice and a steadier mind. “I'm here.”

“I reckon you can reach the tree. That branch isn't thick, but it's supple enough to bend without breaking.”

“And you? What if it doesn't pop back up after I'm on the ground?” Bård eyed the branch with suspicion. He wasn't a particularly heavy man, but claiming that the slender piece of wood would hold his weight was either wishful thinking or denial on his brother's part. Or sacrifice.

“I'll be fine,” Vegard lied.

“You should go first,” Bård said with every instinct of survival in him rioting against the words. The scar on his abdomen twinged in remembered pain, bringing the rock and the dead pines back to his mind again with disconcerting clarity. Bård had been prepared to do it and Vegard had very nearly done it: given his life to spare his brother's. That desperate dive over the edge of the cliff was burned in Bård's memory, repeating in nightmares with regular frequency. He knew Vegard wouldn't agree to his suggestion. His stupid, stubborn, protective brother would never leave the younger one behind.

“No, that makes no sense. You're lighter, you have a better chance of not breaking the branch.”

Bård raised an eyebrow at the inane utterance. It might've been true ten years ago when Vegard was still the physically superior sibling, but his shorter stature and the effects of the ordeals of the recent year had made the difference distinct now. Bård could carry his brother if he had to.

“Fuck that. We go together. No one dies here tonight,” Bård said, his words emphasised by something breaking with a bang downstairs.

“I can't hold onto it,” Vegard said quietly. Bård barely heard him above the terrifying roar of the fire. He closed his eyes for a moment, overheated brain working on too little oxygen, trying to grasp their options. The sound of timber giving away with a crash somewhere in the house made him jump and look around. Smoke was flowing into the room from the smallest gaps and the smooth layer of lacquer on the surface of the door was bubbling. Their trap had been sealed.

“We can't wait!” Bård shouted and turned to find something to break the window with. Before he could reach anything, Vegard rammed his left fist through the glass and cleaned the remaining shards from the frame with his cast. Bård glared at him and returned to the window to suck in cool fresh air that seared his irritated throat.

“Come on!” Bård yelled and started climbing through the opening. Vegard hesitated behind him, not making a move to follow. Bård squinted through the smoky room, blinking his leaky eyes. His brother stood a couple of steps back from the window, swaying a bit and coughing hoarsely.

“Now!” Bård snapped. Vegard took one step forwards. The floor groaned under his feet.

“I think... I don't think I will,” Vegard said quietly, a serene fascination blossoming on his face. “Bård... you go on.”

Bård estimated the distance between them. One of his legs was dangling out of the window, but the other one was still firmly planted inside the house. If he reached suddenly, he could grab his brother and pull him out with him before he could react. But this was Vegard's decision. Something made Bård realise his brother would never be whole if this moment was taken from him. As hard as his heart was beating in utter panic, as quick as his breath was coming in fear, he had to sit still and wait.

“Vegard, I left you behind once. It was the hardest decision I ever made and it still haunts me. No amount of logic can ever erase that feeling of detachment and the terror of not knowing what will happen to you when I'm no longer there. Don't leave me now.”

Helpless eyes connected with Bård's. Vegard drank in his brother's countenance with quiet desperation twisting his face. Another crash shook the house but the brothers barely heard it. The flames were licking the door now, visible on the lower part, spewing more toxic fumes into the already hazy room. Vegard turned to look at the promise of certain death. He took one hesitant step away from the window. The floorboards under him made a sharp whining sound, warning him to go no further. Bård closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face. He forced himself to stay absolutely still, as much as it destroyed him within. This could not be happening. He could not have failed so badly at understanding the most important person in his life. This could not be real.

A sudden impact against his chest pulled Bård back to attention. Vegard was hugging him with painful force, squeezing for dear life. Bård wrapped his arms around the thin body and crushed the ribs against him, brain catching up with reality. Relief made him tremble in speechless joy.

“I'm so sorry, that was so fucking stupid, I want to live! Of course I want to live! There's no way I could leave you!” Vegard was sobbing and coughing and gasping for air. Bård felt every convulsive breath against his torso and held on tighter, panting in sync with his brother.

A new crash from downstairs, this one powerful enough to jolt the wall they were sitting on, alerted Bård to the urgency of their situation. They had to immediately vacate the building or it would collapse on them or they'd choke on the smoke or be burned alive, whichever occurred first.

“Vegard, put your left arm around my neck! We're grabbing that branch together and going down, no matter what!” Bård shouted against the raw pain in his throat.

“Let me take the brunt of the fall!” Vegard replied, voice so hoarse Bård could barely understand him. The younger brother nodded with no intention of following through with the silent promise. They positioned themselves on the windowsill, sitting side by side and leaning forwards. Bård reached for the branch whipping in the wind with his longer arms and pulled it towards them. The door was now completely engulfed in flames fanned by the breeze through the open window. Another small explosion shook the air and the brothers knew they were running out of time. After one final look at each other, they put their hands on the rough maple and pushed themselves free of the burning house.

The pull of gravity was merciless. Bård exerted all the gripping power in his slender fingers into clinging to the branch, dropping like a stone as the wood gave way under their combined weight. Vegard's arm was around Bård's neck, his hot body pressing the younger brother's sweat-soaked shirt against his skin. Bård didn't look down as they fell. He fixed his eyes on the trunk of the tree and watched in fascinated horror as the brown bark blurred with the speed of their descent.

The branch the brothers were using as their lifeline bowed as far as it could before its motion was stopped by the forking point. A small jerk decided whether the branch would break off and leave the brothers to fall unhindered to the ground where the impact would only be softened by a thin layer of vegetation and sediment on the bedrock, or whether it would bend with their weight, resisting the movement enough to marginally slow them down.

Bård felt the tug in his palms, the uneven surface tearing his skin open. Judging by the hiss made by his brother, Vegard's right hand met the same treatment. The arm around Bård's neck tightened its hold, cutting his air for a moment. The tree creaked above them, joining the roar of the flames that was rivalled only by the rush of blood in Bård's ears. After the strong jerk, the branch started splitting from where it was anchored to the trunk, exposing its light yellow inside to the chilled night air. Bård couldn't tell if they were slowing down enough. Just before the impact, he closed his eyes and felt the arm around his neck loosen and disappear. He opened his mouth to shout his brother's name but only got one syllable out before the world exploded in bright colours and pain.

Bård blinked his eyes open. A massive cloud of smoke loomed above him, intermingled with the bare branches of the large maple tree. The glow from the burning building hid the stars, filling his field of vision with stark orange, piercing yellow and billowing black. His head was lying on something soft that moved rhythmically. He flexed his neck cautiously and saw the underside of his brother's jaw.

Bård sat up and assessed his condition. His body hurt all over, but his limbs moved like they should and there were no sudden jabs of agony. The branch above them was broken but not torn off. Their desperate plan had worked. They were alive and in one piece.

“Vegard,” Bård said and coughed. “We made it. Get up.”

The older brother moaned faintly and imitated Bård's movements. He sat up and lifted his good hand to rub the back of his head, wincing a bit. Without saying a word, they climbed to their feet, taking support from each other. Bård's ankle wasn't happy after the impact, but it held his weight. Together they started limping away from the burning building, past the maple and towards a patch of invitingly soft moss. After they had taken three poorly coordinated steps, a great blast hit their backs, knocking them flat on the ground again. Bård understood what was happening when Vegard threw himself over his brother. He lifted his hands from under his brother's body to cover Vegard's unprotected head, splaying his fingers in an attempt to shield him from the debris that rained down on them. Together they endured the falling pieces of timber and the outwards shooting sparks from the collapsed house until silence descended.

The panting of the brothers filled the night, mingling with distant sirens. Neighbours were starting to appear on the street outside the lot, running towards the wreck of the house and shouting inquiries to discover if anyone had survived. Bård needed a moment before he could raise his voice and yell triumphantly that they were okay.

“We are, right?” Bård asked, still cupping the back of his brother's head. Vegard nodded against his chest where his cheek rested. Bård wasn't sure which one of them was trembling or if they both were. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins, blanketing him in a slight sense of unreality. Judging by his slow reactions, his brother was experiencing the same.

“Bård,” Vegard said after a while, ignoring the neighbours babbling questions around them. “Make the phone call.”

Bård's mind took a moment to process the unexpected prompt. As his brain found the connections between telephones and TV stations and long-planned ideas for the future, a huge smile spread across his face.

“Do you mean it?” he asked. Vegard nodded again.

“I'm done being afraid. Life can end at any moment, without warning. I'll probably have doubts – as will you – but we'll hold each other to the promise. We will seize our dream and make the most of it. If it all comes crashing down,” both brothers winced as the wreck behind them spewed more sparks into the air, “so be it, at least we'll have tried. Our life continues now.”

In a moment of unadulterated, raw joy of relief, Bård wrapped his arms around his brother and laughed. Vegard brought his right hand up to rest on Bård's shoulder and held him close, joining in the laughter, their muscles spasming against each other. The neighbours around them whispered about concussions and trauma and contacting their parents, but the brothers only giggled harder. They had escaped a murder attempt nearly intact, they had a future ahead of them, and nothing standing in their way. Dangers still lurked in every shadow but with the fierce realisation of survival boosting their confidence, they knew they could handle anything that was thrown in their path.

It was time to rise again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For epilogue, see NC2: Northern Fall.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and especially for leaving feedback. Your words have been immeasurably valuable and I am hugely grateful. Thank you <3


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